


This is a Theatre Department, Not a Circus

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Black the Coffee that Keeps Them Alive, Different Universe Same Trash OT3, EVERYONE - Freeform, Everyone Wants Jess, Everyone Wants Lucy, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Nicholas is an Ass Per Usual, Red the Blood of Angsty College Students, The College Musical Theatre AU That No One Asked For, This is College, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, everyone is having sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 19:15:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15780372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: What do you get when you throw four exes, three ex-best friends, two love triangles, one torrid affair, one family drama and one set of mutually pining idiots into a college production of Les Miserables? Rittenhouse College is about to find out.





	1. Chapter 1

Rufus laid out the music sheets for auditions and held in his sigh.

 _Les Miserables_.

What the fuck was Mason thinking.

If there was any play that would cause the rivalries in Rittenhouse College’s theatre department to turn into a roaring inferno, it was _Les Mis_.

But then, Mason was still fuming that their theatre department was still too, quote, “white as shit” to put on _Hamilton_ so _Les Mis_ was the next best thing.

Mason had come back to the fall semester in a ‘down with the government’ mood.

“Connor?” Rufus looked up. “You want me to audition? Or do you need me to be the stage manager again?”

“This is your senior year,” Mason—professor and student production director—replied, walking in with another pile of papers. “You should be able to perform if you want.”

Rufus made a mental note to beg Noah to please, please, _please_ call him if there was ever a problem. Rufus had stage managed nearly every production since his freshman year and he didn’t exactly trust Mr. I Got Dumped by Lucy Preston to keep a straight head.

Speaking of the Lucy Preston fan club…

“Rufus!”

Wyatt Logan ran up and wrapped him in a bear hug. “What are we doing this semester, man?”

“The Impossible Dream?” Garcia Flynn asked dryly, coming up behind Wyatt and sporting all black even though it was fucking ninety degrees out still.

‘The Impossible Dream’ was the nickname they’d all given _Hamilton_.

“Guess again.”

Flynn picked up a sheet of paper and his eyes went wide. “Les Mis?”

“Oh _fuck_ yes.” Wyatt grabbed the sheet of paper from Flynn. “I’m going to be Valjean.”

“Um, excuse me?” Flynn took the paper back. “Nice try.”

“Jesus Christ, you all still exist,” Emma Whitmore said, entering and swiping the papers, going to the corner to read them.

“Emma,” Flynn said with false cheer. “I’m surprised you could go out when it’s daytime, doesn’t that hurt your kind?”

Rufus and Flynn hadn’t always gotten along during their time together, but after Emma had royally screwed Rufus over last fall, Flynn had emerged as an unusual ally in his Hate Emma campaign.

Long story short: there had been real blood on stage in _Sweeney Todd_.

“I can’t believe you were once close with her,” Wyatt whispered.

“She’s a good liar,” Rufus replied.

“She’s a sociopath,” Flynn said. “Did you hear she had a fling with Nicholas over the summer?”

“I heard she…” Rufus trailed off as he realized who he was talking to.

Rumor had it that Emma had a one night stand with Jess.

Jess, Wyatt’s ex-girlfriend.

They’d broken up (after three years of on and off dating) at the end of spring semester and Wyatt had… not taken it well, to say the least.

“You’re not taking Valjean from me,” Wyatt snapped, jumping back a subject.

“Watch me.” Flynn turned to Rufus. “Wyatt’s just mad because I got to be Henry Higgins in Misogyny 2.0 last year,” Flynn remarked, using the nickname that everyone in the theatre department had, to Mason’s despair, picked up for _My Fair Lady_. “And Lucy was Eliza.”

“You only wanted that role to get me back for being Curly in Men are Awful,” Wyatt shot back, using the nickname they’d come up with for _Oklahoma!_ after Jess had pointed out that while Judd was awful it wasn’t like the rest of the men in the play were all that great either.

“Would it kill either of you to call any musical by its actual name?” Emma snapped from the corner.

“Yes,” Wyatt and Flynn said simultaneously, and then looked offended that they’d agreed on something.

Rufus was of the opinion that Wyatt and Flynn needed to be locked in a closet until they finally fucked out their problems.

Mason had informed him this would violate several student life policies.

Unfortunately.

“Oh look!” Emma perked up. “Fresh blood!”

The other three turned to see the freshmen entering. Freshmen were easy to spot, they traveled in packs and all had that hunted look about them.

One of them, at the front, looked oddly familiar. She had eyes that Rufus had seen before.

“Oh fuck,” Wyatt whispered. “That’s Amy Preston.”

Amy Preston, aka the younger sister of Lucy Preston, aka the girl that Lucy had warned them all, in very graphic terms, not to include in their ‘perverted bed-swapping shenanigans’.

…the theatre department had a reputation for, ah, swinging.

Sure enough, a moment later Lucy Preston herself entered.

“And I don’t exist anymore,” Rufus said out loud as Wyatt and Flynn whipped around like puppies that had smelled doggie treats.

“Guys!” Lucy barreled up to them, snagging Amy by the wrist and dragging her over. “Meet Amy, she’s going to audition!”

“Hi.” Amy smiled, wiggling her fingers at them all.

“This is my puppy Wyatt—” Wyatt looked like he wanted to throw himself at Lucy’s feet (no wonder Jess had broken up with him) and was just barely restraining himself. “—and this is Garcia but we all call him Flynn because it sounds more dramatic,” Lucy winked at Flynn who looked like he could die happy as a result, “oh! And this is Rufus!”

“I exist again!” Rufus said dryly.

Lucy hugged him. “Where’s Jiya?”

“She’ll be here soon, Mason roped her into hanging lights.”

“Already?”

“Ah, you know how Mason gets. He has ‘visions’.”

“Jiya’s the one with visions.” Lucy turned to Amy. “Jiya’s got this sixth sense or something for when something is going to go wrong. We call her our lucky charm.”

“She’s also Rufus’s—ow!” Wyatt was cut off as Flynn stomped on his foot. Wyatt whirled on him. “I can break into the sword closet and I _will_ ask for a rematch.”

“Why, didn’t get your ass kicked enough last time?”

“More like didn’t get his ass _tapped_ enough,” Rufus muttered. Way to nearly give his embarrassing crush away, Wyatt. “Come on, Mini Preston, I’ll show you where to sign up. You got an audition song planned?”

“Not really. I thought I’d just do something from the musical.”

“I’d recommend not doing that.” Rufus showed her the papers. “Everyone has to do some chorus stuff, but for your solo you’ll want to do something that embodies the character you want that isn’t from the musical. You’re going to be sick of these songs by the end, don’t get yourself sick on them any earlier than you have to.”

“Thanks,” Amy said, smiling gratefully at him. “I’m trying to avoid asking Lucy too much for help. I want to succeed on my own. I know she’s kind of the star of this department.”

“Don’t let Emma hear you say that,” Rufus warned her.

Emma and Lucy had only managed to fail to kill each other through the combined efforts of everyone else in the department thwarting them. Sometimes literally. Everyone remembered the Fork Incident.

Flynn and Wyatt were doing that thing where they pretended not to compete over Lucy but were definitely competing over Lucy by subtly talking over one another and interrupting each other and trying to get Lucy to stare into their eyes.

It always devolved into flirting—sorry, sniping—at each other instead.

Rufus could already feel a headache developing.

“Lucy!”

Ohhhhhh no.

Rufus turned around in time to see Jessica enter. Blonde, sass oozing out of every pore, and with a great rack, everyone was going to want a piece of Jess now that she was finally single.

…maybe he should invest in more headache pills than he’d thought.

Beside him, he heard Amy sharply inhale. “Who’s that?”

Rufus looked at her. Amy had stars in her eyes. “That’s Jess… and you’re drooling.”

“Please tell me she’s single.”

Hoo boy.

“Far as I know.”

Emma stood up and hurried over. “Jess.”

Jess ignored her in favor of hugging Lucy.

Emma looked like she’d been slapped, then tossed her hair as if to say she didn’t care and went back to her corner. Or, stomped, rather.

“How’ve you been?” Lucy seemed genuinely excited to see Jess.

Wyatt looked like he wanted the chandelier to fall down a la _Phantom_. Flynn was smirking.

“Amazing.” Jess hugged Flynn next, then smiled tentatively at Wyatt. “Hey, Wyatt. You look good.”

“So do you,” Wyatt managed to choke out.

Rufus was probably the only one who knew the full story between Wyatt and Jess: how they’d grown up in the same hometown, how Jess had been the reason Wyatt had gotten into college, why he’d even wanted to go in the first place, how she was the only good thing from his childhood and the only person he’d known in this strange new place, the first time he’d been out of Texas and in a city.

Rufus almost couldn’t blame the guy for being a little codependent.

Almost.

“What song are you doing?” Lucy asked Jess, trying to diffuse the tension.

“Oh my God, you know I’m just going to end up in the chorus, I’m so much better at straight plays.”

“Nonsense, you could be one of the Amis,” Lucy replied.

“We gotta keep Grantaire a guy though so we can keep all the unresolved sexual tension between him and Enjolras properly gay.”

“I’m doing ‘Wait for It’,” Wyatt blurted out. Whether it was to get Lucy’s attention or Jess’s was up for debate.

“I’m doing ‘Will He Like Me’,” Lucy said.

“‘The Worst Pies in London’!” Emma called. “Not that any of you care!”

“You’re right, we don’t!” Flynn shot back.

“Just ignore her,” Wyatt advised, putting his hand on Flynn’s elbow and glaring at Emma. “She’s not worth it.”

Homoerotic tension? Check. This was why Rufus drank.

“What are you doing?” Amy asked him.

Everyone turned to look. “Are you actually going to get to be in the play this time?” Lucy asked.

“Yup.” Rufus grinned. “I’ll be singing ‘Look at the Sky’.”

“And I’ll be singing ‘On the Steps of the Palace’,” Jiya cut in, appearing with a grin.

Rufus felt his heart thump painfully as he saw her run in to hug everyone. Three years, and he still got a little dizzy when Jiya Marri walked into the room.

“You? Flynn?” Lucy asked.

“Singing ‘Donny Novitski’,” Flynn replied.

“There,” Lucy said to Jess. “We’ve told you ours, now you tell us yours.”

Jess sighed, but she was smiling. “I’m doing ‘Think of Me’ from Toxic Relationships.”

“ _Seriously, just call the damn musical by its name!_ ” Emma shouted.

Flynn high-fived Jess. “Emma has officially screamed once, the semester has started.”

Rufus took in everyone, simultaneously excited and worried to have everyone back.

“Damn,” Amy whispered, leaning in as she stared at Wyatt and Flynn. “No wonder my sister’s got the hots for both of them.”

Rufus closed his eyes and prayed to a God he didn’t really believe in for patience.

Yeah, definitely worried.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy had thought she’d gotten there early enough by showing up in front of the theatre building at six a.m.

She was wrong.

Flynn and Wyatt were camped out in sleeping bags, Wyatt so curled up that only the top of his head could be seen, empty candy bar wrappers and energy drink cans scattered around them.

Lucy’s heart thumped painfully. She’d known that crushing on Wyatt while he was with someone else was wrong and she’d never acted on her attraction or even let him know how she felt. But Flynn… she’d given him so many chances, and he’d never taken one of them.

What the hell was the point of being in love with two people if neither of them wanted you?

There had been this one moment, during _Sweeney Todd_ , that she’d thought maybe… Flynn had said how much he hated the musical, and Lucy had asked him if he was there just to show Wyatt up (they always inevitably ended up going after the same roles).

“I don’t give a damn about Wyatt,” Flynn had told her.

“Then why the hell are you here?” Lucy had demanded.

Something odd had crossed over Flynn’s face and he’d been about to say something…

And then Emma had hissed at Flynn to get onstage and then the whole Rufus-Emma-Flynn razor incident had happened and, well, there went that.

She’d tried dating Noah after that. He’d been sweet and pining after her and she’d thought, well, why not give it a try?

Now she was single again, and still pining after the two idiots _curled up in sleeping bags outside the theatre department as a result of their stubborn rivalry._

Lucy often questioned her judgment.

“Hey.” She crouched down and shook them. “Guys. It’s six.”

“No…” Wyatt groaned softly, rolling onto his side and burrowing into Flynn, where it was presumably warmer. “Five more minutes.”

Flynn grumbled something in Croatian.

“Okay, stay there if you want, but you know Mason’s an early riser so…”

Neither man moved.

Lucy wondered if she should take a picture of the two supposed rivals cuddling. Instead she said, in a cheerful voice, “Good morning Mason! Is that the cast list?”

Wyatt and Flynn both bolted upright and scrambled to their feet.

“You little minx,” Flynn grumbled when he saw that Mason was nowhere to be found.

“Step aside, I’m first.”

“We camped out here!” Wyatt protested.

“And fell asleep and I could’ve walked right past you. I get to go first.”

Flynn and Wyatt looked at each other, then stepped aside so Lucy could take her place at the head of the line.

Not ten minutes later, Rufus and Dave “Bam Bam” Baumgardner dashed up, out of breath. “Is it posted yet?” Rufus panted.

“Fun being on the other side of the table, eh Rufus?” Flynn said with a grin. “Usually you already know.”

“And you all try to bribe me to tell you,” Rufus replied. “I’m aware.”

“There’s a line already? Fuck!” Jiya ran up.

Rufus stepped aside, indicating for her to go ahead of him in line. Jiya smiled at him, making Rufus blush.

Lucy might have been pining but at least she was pining for a guy who was already with someone else and another guy who’d never taken any opportunity to date her. Jiya would leap at the chance to date Rufus. How Rufus didn’t see it was anybody’s guess.

“Oh, fuck all of you,” Emma snapped, walking up with Nicholas.

Lucy stiffened instinctively.

“Stay calm,” Flynn told her quietly as Wyatt stepped in front of her.

Nicholas was her cousin, and a bigger dickhead she had yet to meet. He came from her mom’s side of the family and was the kind of spoiled, entitled white guy that thought it was time to ‘Make America Great Again’.

Lucy had a double major in theatre and history. She could tell him just how ‘great’ America had been over the years.

Over the summer, she and Nicholas had… well, according to her mom they had ‘ruined the family reunion’. According to Amy, Lucy had ‘rightfully called him out on his sexism’.

Lucy just wanted to talk to him as little as possible.

She’d only told Flynn and Wyatt about it. Rufus was sort of everybody’s best friend, in a way, but part of why she’d fallen in love with the two boys was because they’d been there for her. Wyatt always seemed to know when she was about to cry and Flynn had convinced her not to give up on her history major. They were her best friends.

Now both boys were glaring at Nicholas like they wanted to rip his arms off.

“Morning, Princess,” Emma said.

Lucy flipped her off. Emma had hated Lucy since first semester when Lucy had gotten the role of Elphaba and Emma had gotten Madame Morrible. She always claimed that Lucy was the ‘princess’ of the theatre department and the ‘pet’ of Denise Christopher, the head of the department.

“Oh no,” Amy moaned as she walked up. “I thought you were joking about the line!”

“When do I ever joke about theatre stuff?” Lucy replied. “Back of the line, baby girl.”

Amy pouted but got in line behind Nicholas. “Hey, Nikki! Long time no see! Say, did you ever find your balls after Lucy tore you a new asshole?”

“Oh, can it, Amy.”

“No… no I don’t think I will…”

“Jess?” Wyatt said as Jessica ran up. “Why are you so late?”

“What’s the point?” Jess asked. “We all know where I’m ending up.”

“Stop saying that.” Jess was talented and Lucy hated that Jess always put herself down.

Amy looked happy now that Jess was next to her. Lucy relaxed a little. At least her sister was making friends quickly. Amy had always been the kind of person who made friends everywhere but Lucy was aware it could be hard to go to a place where a family member already had a reputation. Her mom was still talked about fondly in the history department and it had nearly caused Lucy to quit, convinced she’d never be as good as Carol Preston.

Thankfully Flynn had talked her out of that.

Amy was now chatting with Jess, though, making her laugh. Good, good. And thank God that Jess had only slept with Emma once. Jess could do so much better, what the hell had she been thinking?

“Oh fuck,” Wyatt blurted out.

Lucy turned and saw, through the doors, that Mason had emerged from his office.

He crossed the lobby and pinned some pieces of paper to the corkboard, then turned and nodded to someone.

That someone turned out to be Noah, who walked over to the front doors where everyone was standing, peering in.

Lucy couldn’t help the twist of guilt in her stomach. She’d tried to love Noah, really she had. But she just hadn’t been able to get over Wyatt and Flynn.

She hated how she’d hurt Noah in the process.

“You can see the fear in his eyes,” Rufus commented. “The fear of being run over by you nutjobs.”

“I’m glad you’ll be in the play this time,” Jiya said. “We never get to see you enough when you’re the stage manager.”

“…really?”

“Yeah, really. Now we can hang out backstage all the time.”

 _Oh my God Rufus you fucking idiot_ — Lucy thought.

Then Noah yanked the doors open and the only thing on her mind was get to the damn cast list first.

Lucy shoved past Noah with a “sorry!” thrown over her shoulder and tore across the lobby. Wyatt and Flynn were hot on her heels, slowed down by the shoving they were doing.

“Quit it!” “Move it!” “What are you, five?” “Ow!”

Lucy skidded to a halt in front of the corkboard and the two boys nearly ran into her.

“What’s it say?” Jess called, jumping up and down to try and see over Flynn’s six foot four inch frame.

Lucy’s eyes trailed down the list and her breath caught.

“Say it out loud!” Rufus called.

Lucy cleared her throat. “You guys sure?”

“Yes!”

Lucy took a deep breath. “I think maybe Jess should come up here and read it for you.”

There was some murmuring and Jess was shoved to the front of the line. Lucy pointed.

Jess’s eyes trailed down the list as she read. “Jean Valjean – Garcia Flynn.”

Flynn shouted in Croatian and Wyatt punched him in the shoulder.

“Javert – Wyatt Logan.”

“Oh, fuck yes,” Wyatt said. “Prepare for battle, asshole.”

“Bring it.”

“Fantine – Lucy Preston.”

Lucy nearly lost her balance as Amy ran up to her and hugged her, kissing her cheek.

“We all knew that,” Emma said sourly.

“Marius – Dave Baumgardner.”

“Dude!” “All right!” “Go Dave!”

“Eponine – Jiya Marri.”

Jiya shrieked as Rufus grabbed her and spun her around.

“Cosette – Jess…” Jess’s voice trailed off and her eyes went big. “It’s… it’s me.”

Lucy grinned and nudged her with her shoulder. “Yeah. It’s you. You’re Cosette.”

“I’m—but—”

“Only good as a chorus member, huh?” Wyatt said, smiling proudly at her.

“I don’t have any formal training,” Jess said. “You all—you all had lessons, I’m—I’m a bartender for crying out loud.”

“Who’s Cosette?” Dave asked, trying to see.

“I am.” Jess’s voice broke and she tried again. “I am! I’m Cosette!”

Amy whooped and hugged her and Rufus and Jiya clapped.

Lucy read the rest of the list. “Enjolras – Rufus Carlin. Thenarder – Nicholas Keynes. Mme. Thenardier – Emma Whitmore…”

She went on down through the Amis and the chorus. Amy got cast as Joly, which made her thrilled.

As others piled in to see what they got, Lucy found herself taken by the arm and pulled aside. She turned just in time to get tugged into a hug by Flynn.

“Congratulations,” he told her.

Lucy buried her face into his chest and wished like hell she didn’t have to ever let go. “You too. You’re the star of the show.”

Flynn had worked hard for this, she knew. When he’d first come to the school he’d had a thick accent. He’d been cast as Bela Zangler in _Crazy for You_ and he’d known it was just because of his voice.

That had been how he and Lucy had become close, actually. She’d found him tearing up a practice room in anger and she’d calmed him down and they’d talked. He’d told her about his girlfriend Lorena, how she’d gotten pregnant and he’d wanted to marry her, even if it dashed his hopes of going to college in the United States.

Lorena had gone into early labor while they were out for a drive. Flynn had driven as fast as he could but by the time they’d made it to the hospital, both she and the baby were gone.

It was a lot for anyone to carry on their shoulders, but especially an eighteen-year-old.

Flynn had gone to college because it was what Lorena would have wanted. He had to make her proud, he told Lucy. And he wasn’t going to do that by being typecast based on his stupid accent.

He’d spent hours and hours in the practice room after that, working on his accent. He still definitely didn’t sound American but he wasn’t being typecast, either.

And now he was the lead.

Lucy tightened her hold on him. “You deserve this,” she reminded him, even though her voice was muffled from speaking into his chest. “You really do, Flynn. Even Wyatt will admit that.”

“Wyatt’s not admitting anything,” Wyatt said.

Lucy pulled back to see Wyatt standing there with his arms folded. He sighed. “All that shit aside, Flynn… it would’ve been stupid if Mason made you Javert. Everybody knows you can do Javert. It’d be like sleepwalking. And we don’t do our best work when it’s easy.” Wyatt shrugged. “You’re going to be good, I guess is what I’m saying.”

“Careful, Wyatt,” Flynn drawled, grinning slyly. “That sounded an awful lot like a compliment.”

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Wyatt said with a roll of his eyes, but he was struggling not to smile.

“For what it’s worth, there’s nobody I’d rather yell-sing on stage with,” Flynn said.

Mason was surveying everyone’s reactions like the king of drama he was. “Ah, Flynn, Wyatt, just the two I was looking for. I wanted to have a meeting with you beforehand to discuss how we’ll show the homoerotic tension between Valjean and Javert.”

Wyatt choked on air. “The _what_?”

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe I’m Enjolras,” Rufus admitted, still staring at the cast list. “Honestly? I thought I was going to get Grantaire.”

“Pffft, of course you’re Enjolras, you’re perfect for him,” Jiya said, also staring at the cast list. “Hey, Dave, you ready for me to be hopelessly in love with you?”

“One oblivious idiot, coming up,” Dave replied.

“Why am I perfect for Enjolras?” Rufus asked, confused.

“Oh, y’know, the whole Apollo thing,” Jiya said offhandedly. “Oh! Jess, wait!”

She hurried off.

“…you know that Grantaire calls Enjolras ‘Apollo’ because he thinks he’s so handsome, right?”

“…shut up, Bam Bam.”

“Not that anyone cares,” Mason said, making them both jump a foot into the air, “but it was because of the righteous fury you had, Rufus, wherever did you get that?”

Rufus thought about how irritated he’d been right before his audition, with Wyatt and Flynn snapping at each other things like, “listen asshole just because you’re handsome and that lets you get away with shit” (Wyatt) and “okay, pretty boy, just take a breath before you pass out” (Flynn).

“No idea,” Rufus lied.

 

* * *

 

Jess was still in shock. Cosette was one of the leads. She got a duet and a solo and everything. She was important.

…she was going to screw this up, wasn’t she?

“Jess!” It was Amy. Very pretty, very friendly, very off-limits-or-Lucy-will-dig-your-heart-out-with-a-spoon Amy. “I just wanted to say… congratulations.”

Jess found herself blushing. Dammit, she hadn’t blushed since Wyatt had asked her out junior year. “Thanks. You too, getting an Amis on your first audition.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I guess that means we’ll see a lot of each other.” Amy scuffed her shoe along the floor, smiling up at Jess through lowered lashes.

Fuck, she really had to stop being so pretty.

“I guess so.”

“I’m really not used to doing musicals. I don’t suppose… you could help me out? Being a wise senior and all that? I could get a practice room key.”

Judging by Amy’s tone of voice, she didn’t expect them to be using the practice room for its intended purpose.

Wow, it was hot in the room. “I—um—I’m not really good with musicals either,” Jess blurted out. “You’d be better off asking your sister.”

Amy looked disappointed and dammit, she looked so forlorn.

“…but maybe you’d like me to give you a tour of campus? So you don’t get lost?”

Amy brightened up. “I’d love that!”

Jess sighed, relaxing a little. “Great. Here, give me your phone.”

She saw Wyatt over Amy’s shoulder, watching her as she put her number into Amy’s phone.

Well, what business was it of his if she was making friends? Jess had made it clear in May: they were done. Their relationship had become unhealthy and if Wyatt was being honest with himself he’d agree with her. She couldn’t be his security blanket anymore.

“See you later!” Amy said, kissing Jess on the cheek and then darting away.

Jess flushed bright red. She couldn’t decide who was glaring harder: Wyatt, or Emma.

 

* * *

 

Noah frowned over the scripts. “Here you go,” he said, passing the script up to the next cast member without even looking at them.

“Stage managing sucked your soul out already?” Dave joked.

Noah looked up. “Oh, hey man. Nah, just didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

“What do you think of the cast?” Dave nodded over his shoulder at everyone else.

“You mean the cast made up of Jess and Wyatt, who are exes, Nicholas and Emma, who are exes, Jess and Emma who are ex… something, Lucy, who’s still in that stupid love triangle with Wyatt and Flynn, who is also Emma’s ex-best friend along with Rufus, Emma’s other ex-best friend, and Rufus and Jiya who have been pining after each other since freshman auditions for _Wicked_?” Noah shrugged sarcastically. “I think this is going to go great.”

“We’ll be lucky if nobody gets injured,” Dave noted. “Hey, why didn’t you audition? You’re talented. You cracked me up doing Make ‘Em Laugh. You’d have been a great Thenardier.”

“I need the crew credits,” Noah said. “And I figured sharing the stage with Lucy wasn’t the best thing.”

“That did suck,” Dave replied. “I’m sorry man.”

“It is what it is. It was kind of her, honestly. I knew she still had a thing for those two, it wouldn’t have been fair to stay together.”

“Being single’s hard, though. Nobody to eat brunch with.”

Noah snorted, laughing. He’d forgotten how funny Dave was. “Yeah, fair.”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” Dave went on casually, “but I’m single too and I need a brunch buddy. You want to grab something?”

“Hell yeah.”

Funny, he’d forgotten how cute Dave was too…

 

* * *

 

“Mason?”

“Denise! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Why are your two students yelling at each other in the parking lot?”

“There was a dispute about the homework I gave them for the play.”

“…you cast them as Javert and Valjean didn’t you.”

“…perhaps.”

“What did I tell you would happen if you did that?”

“They’d strangle each other before we ever got to tech?”

“Go and separate them before they get campus security called on them. Again.”

“A killjoy, that’s what you are, Denise.”


	3. Chapter 3

It was not the first, and probably would not be the last, time that Wyatt and Flynn had yelled at each other in the parking lot.

Probably the worst time had been during _Sweeney_ when Flynn had pointed out how unhealthy the relationship between Anthony and Johanna was, and it had unfortunately been the morning after Jess had broken up with Wyatt for good, and things had… gotten heated.

Rufus had ended things by cutting the power to the theatre and plunging them all into darkness.

But this, this was starting to work its way up the ladder to contend for ‘worst time’ because Flynn could handle a hell of a lot from Wyatt. He’d handled Wyatt’s father issues sophomore year when they’d gotten drunk as fuck and had an unexpected heart-to-heart about shit fathers while doing strike. He’d handled Wyatt in the men’s dressing room after Jess officially ended things during _Sweeney_ when he’d walked in on Wyatt crying and had helped fix his makeup and hadn’t told a soul. He’d handled Wyatt when they’d gotten into a fucking fistfight during _My Fair Lady_ and had ended up with split lips and black eyes they’d had to hide from Denise.

Homophobia, though? No. No, Flynn was not fucking dealing with that.

“First off?” he snapped. “You know I’m bi, you idiot, so why would—”

“That’s not why I was pissed at Mason!” Wyatt shouted right back.

“Whoops, sorry I’m so repulsive.”

“You’re a complete asshole, Flynn, and you’re smug as fuck and you’re a walking trash can so maybe you shouldn’t be throwing sarcasm stones, okay?”

“Then why were you so against it, huh? It makes total sense, it plays into the existing narrative and adds another layer—”

“Not if we play it like that, it doesn’t! You idiot!”

“I’m the idiot?”

“Yes, you’re the idiot! Did God give you all face and no brains?”

Flynn really didn’t want to be thinking about Wyatt’s weird compliment-insults when he was furious with the guy for getting in Mason’s face about having Javert and Valjean be attracted to each other. Mason had been perfectly reasonable about it, and it wasn’t like they’d even have to kiss. But Wyatt was deadset against it and had stormed out, and Flynn, of course, had followed to demand what the fuck this was about.

“Just admit you’re not comfortable playing gay, Wyatt, be enough of a person to admit your fucking—”

“Oh my God.” Wyatt looked like he wanted to tear his hair out. “It’s not that I’m against playing gay, you complete numbskull, it’s that it would be an imbalance of power!”

That brought Flynn up short. “It—what?”

“Imbalance of power? That whole thing you were yelling at me about during _Sweeney_?” Wyatt crossed his arms and did that thing where he was trying to look angry but just ended up looking adorable. “Javert was a prison guard. He was literally in charge of whether Valjean lived or died. If he slept with Valjean or even flirted with him that’s—it’s not right, because how would he know Valjean was doing it because he really liked him? Or what if Valjean was just doing it to survive? And what if Valjean thought he had to reciprocate or Javert would hurt him? It’s not a healthy relationship and I’m not—if I play that, then it just looks like Javert’s even more unhealthily obsessed with Valjean, in like a creepy way, and I think we have enough creepy gays going around in media as it is, and fuck, man, Javert’s all about justice, I don’t want that focus taken away because Mason wants to be ‘edgy’.”

Flynn wondered when the world had started spinning in the other direction. Wyatt was… actually right.

“When the hell did you get so smart, Logan?”

Wyatt shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Over the summer I… Jess convinced me to go to therapy.”

Flynn’s eyebrows shot up. Wyatt didn’t go home during the summer. He hated his hometown, so he always stayed on campus and worked odd jobs or got a theatre internship somewhere. “That’s… that’s big of you.”

“It fucking sucks,” Wyatt admitted. “But it’s helping. Kate’s really great. She works with me.”

“I had no idea.”

“Nobody does.”

“And this is where you got this whole new… sensitivity about unhealthy relationships?”

“That and a few other things.” Wyatt looked stricken. “Don’t—please don’t tell Lucy.”

“She’d be happy for you.”

“Yeah but—fuck, Garcia, she already pities me ‘cause of Jess.”

“Lucy doesn’t _pity_ you.” Jesus Christ, did Wyatt really think that? Lucy was in love with him, and if he still hadn’t figured it out after all this time, Flynn just might strangle the guy. “I don’t pity you either, Wyatt, not that you care—”

“Of course I care.”

Flynn snorted. Wyatt had always made it painfully, achingly clear that no matter what Flynn did, he would never earn Wyatt’s friendship.

That had always hurt more than Flynn had thought was warranted. It wasn’t like he needed Wyatt to think well of him, or anything. He just. He did.

“I… I care,” Wyatt repeated, his voice small.

Flynn put his hands on his hips, glaring. “Oh?”

Wyatt shrugged. “You were always so open about it.”

What? “I think I lost the thread here.”

Wyatt threw his hands into the air. “About—about your sexuality.”

“…are you telling me that was some kind of—what, white knight routine? Because I’m bi?”

“No, asshole, as much as I’d like to say that it was all for you, it wasn’t. It was for me.” Wyatt looked a little red in the face. “Because if I’m going to play someone who’s—who’s like me, who likes—men as well, then I want—I’m not going to play some fucking creep who obsesses over some guy he coerced into sex in prison.”

Wyatt looked like he wanted to go and drown himself in the campus pool now. Flynn had the inexplicable urge to hug him.

“Does anyone…”

“No.” Wyatt shook his head. “Actually, okay, Rufus knows.”

“Rufus knows literally everything,” Flynn replied. “He doesn’t count. Does Jess know. Does Lucy know.”

“Fuck no.” Wyatt looked like he was having a heart attack at the very thought. “Look, I will tell them, I know I should but—fuck, Flynn, I just spent three months on a couch, do I have to spill my guts even more?”

“No, you don’t.” Flynn sighed. “Okay. Look, I’ll—we’ll talk to Denise about it. In a calm way, not in a yelling because you’re a hot mess kind of way. She’ll know how to talk to Mason and if she doesn’t then we’ll go to Rufus and he will. Okay?”

Wyatt nodded, still looking a bit sick. “C’mere,” Flynn said, yanking him in before Wyatt could put up a fight. Wyatt went stiff for a second and then relaxed, breathing into Flynn’s shoulder, his hands holding on tight.

“You know you could’ve just told me instead of exploding on Mason like that,” Flynn murmured. “You could’ve told me earlier, hell, if you’d called over the break…”

“We’re not exactly friends, Flynn, I couldn’t just call you up.”

Fair enough. “I was willing to be friends all freshman year, idiot. You haven’t made it easy.”

“…true.”

Wyatt pulled back, and his eyes were rimmed red. Flynn had been lucky with his mom. Maria had been an amazing woman. Wyatt hadn’t had anyone to teach him that who he was, was okay.

“Hey, now.” Flynn cupped Wyatt’s cheek. “You’re okay, Logan. I mean, you’re in the theatre department, if there’s any place you can feel safe, it’s here with us. We all love you.” He paused. “Okay so not Emma and Nicholas but they can literally disappear off the face of the earth.”

Wyatt laughed. “Thanks.”

Flynn realized he’d been touching Wyatt for way too long and dropped his hand. “Yeah, don’t mention it.”

Wyatt ducked his head, still flushed red. “Seriously. Thanks. I wasn’t planning on saying anything, but… it was good, to know that you were there. Just… knowing you were here, I guess, if that makes sense.”

“It makes sense.” Flynn wanted to hug him again but wasn’t sure if Wyatt would want that—but it was hard, when he knew what it was like, to be scared like that, about that, and wishing he could truly convince Wyatt it was okay, maybe take Wyatt to lunch to talk about it more…

Oh.

Oh motherfucking love of _fuck._

 

* * *

 

Amy stumbled a little. “Lucy, seriously?”

“Keep your eyes closed.”

Amy rolled her eyes, even though Lucy couldn’t see underneath the blindfold she’d put on her. “I can’t see anything anyway.”

She could hear, though, and she could definitely pick up the whispers and giggles. “You’re not going to slap me with a whipped cream pie, are you?”

“I promise,” Lucy replied, “this is an honor.”

Someone else grabbed Amy’s other hand and squeezed it. “There’s the Drama Club,” Jess said, and Amy’s heart skipped a beat, “but then there’s our club.”

“Established freshman year when we needed to bitch about our director but could only trust certain people not to blab,” Lucy added.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Jess let go of her hand and took Amy’s waist instead. “There’s a ladder in front of you.”

Amy really wanted to press back into her. Even the blindfold was… fun, something to add to it. Jess’s hands sliding over her…

But Lucy was there and apparently climbing up the ladder, if the noises Amy was hearing were any indication. Amy could admit she was into a lot of things but exhibitionism in front of her sister was not one of them.

Amy started climbing the ladder instead.

She climbed up for what felt like minutes but probably wasn’t that long and then she felt two strong arms grabbing her—definitely not Lucy—and hauling her up. “Hey, Mini Preston.”

Flynn. Amy grinned. “Heya, big guy.”

“Take three steps back, then sit down.”

Amy did so, finding herself sinking into a beanbag chair.

“It’s me,” Lucy said, deft fingers undoing the knot at the back of her blindfold, and then Amy could see.

She was in a room, a small, closed off room, the only entrance the hole in the floor with the ladder. But around her—oh. Someone, or several someones, had decorated the place, stringing it with Christmas lights and filling it with beanbag chairs and a carpet and blankets and had posted pictures all over. Play posters were hung up too, but it was the photographs that got Amy: all of the theatre kids in various combinations, at lunch, at rehearsal, at cast parties.

“Wow,” she said softly.

“Welcome!” Rufus said in an announcer voice, “To Casa de Lifeboat!”

Amy laughed as he collapsed into a beanbag chair, right next to Jiya, she noticed.

“We got alcohol,” Dave said, “We got gossip, we got snacks, we got card games, and we got sarcasm!”

“And we got a retractable ladder,” Noah added, pointing.

Sure enough, Wyatt and Jess were hauling the ladder back up and closing the trap door.

“Flynn lifts Wyatt up to lift the trap door,” Rufus explained. “Then he lifts Lucy up through the hole, and she sends the ladder down.”

“Remember when we first tried lifting Wyatt up through the hole?” Jess laughed.

“You mean when I almost blew out my back?” Flynn replied.

“Hey, I nearly had a concussion,” Wyatt said.

“You’re talking like I dropped you, which I didn’t.”

“That way this place is hidden,” Rufus concluded. “So certain people can’t find it.”

“Like my cousin?”

Everyone made faces. Amy couldn’t blame them. Nicholas was a pill. “Definitely like him,” Wyatt agreed.

Jess collapsed next to her and Amy almost had a heart attack. Fuck, she was so pretty and talented. “Flynn caught him bridal style,” Jess whispered gleefully.

“So you and Wyatt… aren’t together anymore?” Amy asked. She’d heard that but she just wanted to be sure. She’d had to listen to Lucy cry for three years about how Wyatt and Jess were on again off again, she didn’t want to end up in the middle of something.

Jess shook her head. “We were together for the wrong reasons in the end,” she said. “I’m swinging single now.”

Amy wanted to climb into her lap and fuck her stupid. “And do you… swing?”

“Dance?” Jess laughed as Amy’s face fell. “If you’re asking if I’m into women, yes. Why’s a pretty thing like you asking?”

Her Texan drawl came out as she said that last part and Amy thought her spine might have melted. “I…”

Lucy cleared her throat and Jess jerked back like someone had slapped her. Before Amy could ask what that was about, Rufus cleared his throat and stood up.

Noah and Dave were sharing a beanbag, Amy noticed. They looked mighty cozy. Wyatt was next to Dave in another beanbag, then Lucy, then Flynn, then Jiya, then Rufus, forming a semicircle.

“All right. So. Mini Preston.” He grinned. “This here is the Lifeboat Club. A secret room that was originally, we think, some kind of storage space that time forgot. This is our safe space, and we trust you but we want to keep it that way. So, here are the rules:

“1. You don’t talk about Lifeboat Club.

“2. You don’t talk about Lifeboat Club.

“3. Any drama, you take it outside. There is no drama that poisons this space. This is a relaxing space.

“4. You can gossip about anyone in the college here so long as they are not a member of the Lifeboat Club.

“5. You gotta help contribute to the food and beer.

“6. No sex in the Lifeboat Club. We don’t want to have to deal with that mess.

“And I think that’s it.”

Everyone nodded.

“And now,” Lucy intoned, “we begin the initiation ritual.” She pointed at one wall.

On the wall were listed various musicals, with other names next to them. _Hairspray – We Cured Society Through Song. Thoroughly Modern Millie – You’ll Never Be Better than Sutton Foster. The Scarlet Pimpernel – The Not-Batman. Light in the Piazza – Dammit it’s Italian!_

“That last one’s because Wyatt kept forgetting the Italian lyrics,” Jess whispered. “Flynn knows Italian and he offered to translate it all for Lucy.”

“Of course he did.” Amy had only been on campus a few days but she already could tell that Flynn had it bad for Lucy. So did Wyatt.

How her sister couldn’t see it was anyone’s guess.

_She Loves Me – The ORIGINAL Romantic Comedy, Do Not Settle for Imitations (TORCDNSFI for short)._

“Partially named so that one can hear the hilarious attempts at pronouncing the acronym,” Jess explained.

“You,” Rufus said, “Need to rename a musical to be inducted into the Lifeboat Club.”

“That’s it?” Amy asked.

“It’s harder than you’d think,” Wyatt warned her. “Took me forever.”

“ _Grease_ – Sex Really is Everything,” Lucy said with a laugh.

“How’d this tradition start?”

“We were all talking about how we did _Anything Goes_ in high school,” Lucy said. “And so Flynn said…”

“…we should rename it ‘The Real Highschool Musical,” Wyatt finished with a grin.

Flynn looked down at his lap, clearly embarrassed. “Hey, I’m not the one who started the naming spree.”

“No, that was Jiya.”

“I thought hers was inspired. She came up with the name for the next one we had to do.”

“What was hers?” Amy asked.

“Heteronormative Relationships,” Flynn said, and then sighed heavily.

“Heteronormative Relationships?”

“No, you have to sigh at the end,” Flynn said. “The heavy sigh is key.”

“I had Horny on Main,” Jess said. “Honestly, this director—Cahill—had nothing but the stupidest musicals, just all the old ones with crappy plots and subtle misogyny. Thank God Denise replaced him.”

“Nothing will be as bad as Oh Shit We Need a Plot,” Jiya said firmly. “Nothing.”

“I’ve completely lost the thread here,” Amy admitted.

“ _Guys & Dolls_, _On the Town_ , and _Crazy for You_ ,” Rufus explained.

“But we’ve got some musicals missing,” Lucy said. “So you get to fill one.”

Amy’s eyes ran over the list of musicals on the wall, the ones with no new name next to them. She stood up and walked over, pointing at _The Last Five Years_.

“Narcissism in A Major?” Amy suggested.

Everyone stared at her.

“I’m aroused,” Jess announced.

“Well, well, well, Mini Preston,” Flynn said with a grin. He looked over at Rufus.

Rufus nodded. “Welcome to the Lifeboat Club.”


	4. Chapter 4

It all started to go bad the very first rehearsal.

Mason was having them learn ‘One Day More’ first because they had to get the biggest, most complicated musical numbers down before they moved onto anything else. It was expected that soloists would be working on their own numbers as well on their own time.

Rufus didn’t know what the freshmen were thinking watching him and Emma square off but he didn’t care. He’d used to care a lot about what people thought but after a few too many run-ins with racists (he’d once proven it to Lucy by stealing a guy’s car after the guy assumed Rufus was the valet) he’d decided that fuck it, he was going to act how he wanted and say what he wanted. If he was going to end up made fun of either way, might as well get in that smart remark.

“Your spot is over there.”

“I need to be close to the piano.”

“No, you need to be over by Nicholas. You know, the guy playing your husband?”

“I am not standing next to him,” Emma hissed.

“You chose to date him, Emma,” Flynn cut in. “I believe I was the one who told you that it was a…” He looked at Rufus. “What did I say exactly?”

“You said it was possibly a worse idea than starting a land war in Asia,” Rufus replied.

Emma made a scathing noise. “You two think you’re so damn funny. Isn’t it possible that I made a mistake? That I realized it and walked away?”

“You didn’t think that trying to cut me with an actual razor _on stage_ was a mistake,” Flynn shot back.

That had been the result of Emma and Flynn’s increasing arguing during _Sweeney_. Flynn had, somehow, not born witness to Emma’s hatred of Lucy (or he never would’ve given Emma the time of day, Rufus was sure) and had befriended her after Emma and Rufus had fallen out because Emma had decided that Flynn was ‘cooler’ than Rufus.

And here he’d thought they’d left high school behind but, whatever. Rufus had to admit that he’d unfairly hated the oblivious Flynn for a while after that.

But Emma had kept trying to upstage Flynn during _Sweeney_ , and Rufus hadn’t really helped by snarking at them both, and then Emma had argued they needed real razors and it had become a sticking point because, well, she was stubborn and so was Rufus, and then she and Flynn had a massive fight, and Flynn had maybe pushed her a little so that she slipped on some fake blood, and so Emma had _definitely_ grabbed one of the razors and slashed his hand with it.

That had also, incidentally, been what had led to Lucy trying to stab Emma in the eye with a fork later at the cast party.

…it had been a long night.

“You’re psychotic,” Flynn went on. “Now get over to the bed you made and lie in it. Leave Rufus alone.”

Emma flipped him off but stomped over to stand next to Nicholas.

“Thanks man. I’m still shit at confrontation.”

“I swear she needs therapy,” Flynn replied. “God help us if someone ever gave her an actual cause.”

“Oh God, she’d be a regular Bond villain.”

“If everyone could please remember that we are in a rehearsal?” Mason called. “Altos, I need you to be louder. Sopranos, the world and most importantly this number does not revolve around you, please tone it down. Nicholas, no adding flourishes until you can hit the notes on key, and Dave, you were a bit flat starting out.”

Flynn rolled his eyes at Rufus.

“So, I hear Mason wants to make the subtext more prominent,” Rufus whispered as Mason worked the tenor section. “How’d Wyatt take that?”

“Better than you’d expect,” Flynn said lightly.

Rufus narrowed his eyes at him. “…he told you, didn’t he?”

“He said you’re the only one who knows.”

“Damn right. Don’t break his heart, Flynn.”

Flynn gaped at him. “What is that suppo— _one day more_ …” Flynn jolted into singing his line as Mason pointed at him.

Now Rufus was the one rolling his eyes. “Y’know, about how you’re the reason he knows?” he whispered as Dave and Jess took over and Flynn stopped singing.

“I’m the reason he knows what?” Flynn whispered.

“You’re the— _one more day before the storm!_ ” Rufus sang.

“Rufus— _the time is now, the place is here… one day more…_ what does Wyatt… _one day more…_ know?”

“If you want to know then you should ask him.”

“He told me he realized he was bi and that he went to therapy, I assumed it came out during that.”

“How do you think he realized he was bi you idiotic lump of— _one day to a new beginning…_ ”

“Wait are you say— _one day more!_ ”

They all did the final few lyrics together, singing over and under one another until they got to the last bit.

Mason glared at Rufus and Flynn as the voices died down. “Do I have to separate you two?”

Rufus ignored the elbow that Flynn dug into his side. “No, Mason, we’re good.”

“We’re continuing this later,” Flynn muttered through gritted teeth as Mason gave instructions to others and specifically told Emma that threatening to put Nicholas in a choke hold was not proper rehearsal etiquette.

“No, we’re really, really not,” Rufus muttered back.

If Wyatt hadn’t told Flynn the full truth about his whole sexuality crisis, then it wasn’t Rufus’s job to tell him—momentary disbelief and desire to clear the damn air aside. If Flynn wanted answers, he could talk to Wyatt.

“Flynn!” Mason barked. “Shockingly enough as the lead character, we’re all quite literally waiting on you.”

Flynn visibly had to unclench his jaw. “ _One day more…_ ”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt didn’t like whatever Rufus and Flynn were whispering about in between their song lyrics.

It was probably just about Emma, who’d been giving Rufus a hard time again, but he couldn’t stop the paranoia.

He hadn’t told Flynn the full truth.

He’d told Flynn that he was bi, and that he’d gone to therapy, and all that was true. But it wasn’t therapy that had made him realize his sexuality. That had already happened, back—way back—during auditions for _Sweeney_.

Technically, someone could request a private audition if they wanted, but few people did. So when Flynn had requested one, everyone had wondered why.

The Lifeboat Club, of course, hadn’t let that stop them and had climbed up into their club room. One of the walls actually had a small window that you could open, currently hidden behind a massive poster for _The Lion King_.

Peering through the small window, you could spy on the entire theatre space. They’d all crowded around and listened in as Flynn had sung ‘Where in the World’ from _The Secret Garden_.

“That’s amazing,” Jess had whispered. “He’s getting Sweeney, hands down.”

For once, Wyatt hadn’t been angry. He’d wanted the title role, of course he had. But listening to Flynn… the sheer emotion and layers he’d put into that song…

But Wyatt had known something, something that only one other person had known. Jess found out later, as did Rufus, but at the time, it was just Lucy and him.

As the others talked about how great Flynn was and how he was a shoo in, Wyatt had realized that Lucy wasn’t among them.

He’d climbed down the ladder to find her curled up behind a shelf of lighting gels, crying.

“Luce.” He’d pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her. “What’s wrong?”

Lucy had wiped at her eyes, sniffing. “Why do you think he picked that song, Wyatt?”

And Wyatt had remembered—

Lorena.

Flynn was actually a year older than the rest of them because he’d taken a gap year after Lorena’s death—Lorena and Iris, Flynn had insisted on her getting a name, the one that he and Lorena had picked out—before going to college, so it had been almost four years at that point.

Four years later and Flynn was still in love with her.

It had been like a fucking punch to the chest—and Wyatt had taken several of those over the years—and his world had tilted to the point of nearly throwing up. Because the envy and sadness he’d felt in that moment had been all-encompassing, and he’d felt like he was on the beach, frozen, standing there as a massive wave bore down on him and he could only stand there and wait for the wave to crash over him and drown him…

That had been when he’d known.

He’d told Kate, his therapist, first. It had sort of slipped out when he’d been talking about the rough patches he and Jess had gone through. Kate had been… amazing, honestly. She was a lot like Jess in some ways which had helped Wyatt to realize that he and Jess had been holding each other back. He’d been jealous and possessive and stupid, because he’d been so used to her being the only good thing, and terrified that he’d lose her.

Kate had helped him to see how much he had in his life now, and how he didn’t have to worry about any love being taken from him.

It was still uncomfortable to be around Jess. He still felt a sense of… closeness to her that lingered from being together for so long. And it hurt a bit to see her flirting with Amy and to know that she’d slept with Emma (Emma? Really? Jess what the hell?). But mostly he was happy for her, and relieved to be in a better place himself.

Kate had, however, suggested one thing that Wyatt couldn’t do.

“Tell Flynn and Lucy how you feel,” she’d advised. “You need to speak up about your feelings instead of bottling them up, Wyatt.”

Yeah, hell no. He’d told Rufus and that was good enough.

…now he just had to trust Rufus to keep his goddamn mouth shut and—

“Wyatt Logan!” Mason barked. “I suppose you’re just going to let the revolution go unopposed, then?”

Wyatt could feel his face heating up. “Shit, sorry— _one more day till revolution…_ ”

 

* * *

 

Lucy groaned, her face in her hands. Nobody had been paying attention during ‘One Day More’, not even Flynn who was usually the most focused of all. What was wrong with everyone?

Mason had called a ten-minute break, probably to go drink a shot or a bottle of Prozac, and Emma and Nicholas were now arguing.

“ _Weeeeell_ …” Flynn sang, sauntering past them. “ _Well, well, well, well, well_ …”

“Shut _up_ , Flynn,” Nicholas growled.

Flynn pointed. “It talks!”

“Next thing you know it’ll be asking you to feed it,” Rufus said.

“ _You’ll be a deeeentiiiiiist_ …” Jiya sang absentmindedly from the piano.

Amy plopped down into a chair next to her. “Welcome to the theatre life, huh?” she said, gesturing towards Jiya and Rufus who were now doing the whole dentist tango bit.

Lucy groaned. “Yeah, complete with the fear that we’ll never be ready in time.”

“ _Four weeks you rehearse and rehearse…_ ” Amy sang quietly, teasing her.

Lucy sat up, laughing. Amy always knew how to lighten her up.

“Y’know,” Amy went on quietly, “after hearing about him for so long, I expected to meet this brooding Brontë hero type. But Flynn’s really open and cheerful. I mean, snarky as fuck, but still. Much more Austen style.”

“He wasn't at first,” Lucy replied. “It took… a while.”

“You’ve seen him looking at you,” Amy said. “You have to have. You went on about how he’d never—but he looks at you, all the time, Lucy. He’s smitten.”

Lucy felt like her breath had frozen inside her. “Amy… no, okay? We’re not having this conversation.”

“But—he’s always watching you when you’re not looking, and he—”

Lucy grabbed Amy’s wrist, shocked at the violence of her own emotions. She’d long gotten used to the idea that she wouldn’t ever get either man she wanted, yet with Amy’s brand-new eyes, it was like going through it all over again.

“Amy, listen to me carefully, okay? Because what I’m going to tell you, Flynn would kill me if he knew I’d said anything. The only people who know are me, Wyatt, Rufus, and Jess. Okay?”

“…is this about who really shot Kennedy?”

“Ames, I’m serious.”

“Okay, okay.” Amy sat still and made a _go on_ gesture.

“Flynn had a girlfriend.” Lucy didn’t see a reason to tell the full story, especially not the part about Iris. That had been what Flynn named the baby. Iris Maria Flynn. “She died, when Flynn was eighteen. He took a year off before coming here and he’s… fuck, Amy, he did this all for her. He’s pursuing his career for her, because it’s what she would’ve wanted.

“For _Sweeney_ last year he… his audition song, I eavesdropped. He requested a private audition but I snuck up to the Lifeboat Club, it’s got a hidden window and you can see everything in the theatre from there. And he sang ‘Where in the World’.”

Amy’s breath caught as her mind made the connection. “Oh.”

Lucy hadn’t been able to stop herself from crying. Wyatt had found her but thank God none of the others had seen.

Flynn had sounded—God, he’d sounded so good, and she’d known who he was thinking about when he’d sung that song. Who else could it be?

“He’s still in love with her,” Lucy whispered. She wasn’t going to cry in the middle of rehearsal, she wasn’t going to cry in the middle of rehearsal, she wasn’t… “He loves her, Amy, and I have to respect that, just like I have to respect Wyatt’s feelings for Jess. It’s just how it is.”

Amy stared at her for a moment, then darted forward and hugged her. “You’re the best person I know, Lucy,” she whispered.

Lucy hugged her back, holding on tight.

“…Lucy?” Fuck, Flynn had noticed. “Everything okay?”

“Ten minutes is up!” Noah announced. “Places!”

“Everything’s fine! Just sister bonding.” Lucy smiled brightly at Flynn, pulling away from Amy. “Better get into places before Mason really has your hide.”

Flynn looked doubtful but went back to stand at the piano with everyone else. Lucy drew in a shaky breath.

 _You’re fine_ , she told herself. _It’s fine, you’re fine, everything’s fine._

“ _One day more…_ ”

Everything was fine.


	5. Chapter 5

Amy frowned, watching everyone in rehearsal interacting.

Emma needed to back the hell off of Jess, if you asked Amy, but since Jess hadn’t asked for help, Amy didn’t want to be that jealous asshole that got in the way. She’d heard that Jess had dealt with that enough from Wyatt and Amy was determined to be ten times better than Wyatt and win Jess hook, line, and sinker.

…no offense.

Wyatt and Jess were definitely still awkward around each other but that was nothing compared to Wyatt and Flynn. The two sniped at each other like their lives depended on it and Amy was pretty sure they were unofficially in a game of ‘anything you can sing I can sing louder’.

Rufus plopped down next to her in the stands. “How’s it going, Mini Preston?”

Normally Amy would have objected to the nickname, both because she was taller than Lucy and because she didn’t need reminding she was in her sister’s shadow here. But it was said with such love and affection, she found that she liked it. It was like having the last name of Preston was an honor.

It warmed Amy’s heart. Mom had pitched a hell of a fit when Lucy had said she was double majoring, adding theatre onto history, and she knew that Lucy had doubted her choice for a while. But now look at her. Star of the department.

At the moment, said star of the department was being lifted up by Flynn so that she could tie a red ribbon around a high-up set piece.

“Why are they doing that?” Amy asked, pointing.

“Well, see,” Rufus started, “when we did Comfort Musical…”

“Who came up with that one?” Amy asked.

“Actually, in this case, it’s self-preservation,” Rufus explained. “See, there’s a running joke that whenever someone says _The Music Man_ …”

“BUT HE DOEN’T KNOW THE TERRITORY!” Wyatt, Flynn, Lucy, Noah, Dave, Jess, and Jiya all instinctively shouted at the top of their lungs.

“…that happens,” Rufus sighed.

Amy laughed. She loved all these crazy traditions and in-jokes. “Go on.”

“Well, Jiya had heard that if you tie a red ribbon around something, it means that whatever you’re hoping for that something will come true. So if you want to sell your house, you tie a red ribbon around the ‘for sale’ sign. And Jiya’s our good luck charm so we do what she says. And the rehearsals were worse than this round, if you can believe that.”

Wyatt and Flynn were now fighting over staging. “…I’ll try to believe it.”

“So, we tied a red ribbon around one of the gazebo posts and bam, opening night went perfectly.”

“Huh.”

“Now we tie a red ribbon around a piece of the set so that we have good luck.”

Wyatt told Flynn that he was “six feet of insufferable” and Flynn shot back something about Wyatt’s height that was a not-so-subtle jab at Wyatt’s supposed dick size.

“…and we need all the good luck that we get,” Rufus grumbled.

“I don’t understand,” Amy admitted. “Is it because of Lucy? Is that why they’re always fighting?”

Rufus sighed. “Look. Amy. Sometimes, when two people like each other very much…”

Amy gaped at him. “They _like_ each other?”

“I think so.”

“They like each other _very much_?” Amy looked significantly over at Wyatt and Flynn who were now doing an excellent job at pretending the other one didn’t exist. “…do you think we should tell them?”

“Mini Preston, they’d never believe us.”

Amy hoped—for Lucy’s sake—that Rufus was right. Because if Lucy had been forced to choose between Wyatt or Flynn, Amy didn’t think Lucy was even capable of that. And more than anything, Amy wanted Lucy to be happy.

 

* * *

 

Lucy held up the dress she was supposed to wear. Red? Really Mason? Going all the way with this prostitute metaphor, apparently.

“Someone should tell him there’s not supposed to be an ‘A’ on your chest,” Jess joked, coming up behind her wearing a white dress. “And if he thinks this is supposed to signify innocence I’ve got a few choice words for him myself.”

“I think I look better in blue,” Lucy admitted.

“Pfft, you look good in anything. You’d look good in a sackcloth. But the red…” Jess grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “You know that’s Flynn’s favorite color, he’s going to drool all over the stage.”

“Whatever you say. Everyone’s going to fall in love with you too, y’know.”

Jess bit her lip. “You really think that?”

Lucy frowned. “Jess… look, I know you haven’t really starred in musicals a lot, but you know you got this role because you deserve it, right?”

Jess tucked some hair behind her ear. Jess was the kind of person who oozed confidence, the kind of person who walked down the street and didn’t give a fuck what people thought about her. “I guess? But I’m also a senior.”

“It’s not because you’re a senior.”

“These are really hard notes, Lucy!” Jess burst out, her voice cracking. “And I mean, I have to convince the audience I’ve fallen in love with a guy in one song, it’s ridiculous, and I have to be—Cosette is nothing like me, you know that, how can I—”

“Hey, hey.” Lucy took Jess by the elbows and guided her to sit down. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to think you’re not good enough. But Jess… you are so kick ass. You’re not scared of anything. You’re a great actress and a much, much better singer than you think you are. I know that you’ll pull off Cosette because once we were all like her. Sheltered, yearning, wanting romance and adventure… we all wanted that once. So I know that’s in you.”

Jess nodded, yanking Lucy down for a hug. “Thanks, hon. You’re a good person.”

“I’m not sure about that but I do try.”

Jess laughed wetly and pulled back. “No, you’re a good person. If you weren’t you would’ve tried to get Wyatt to cheat on me semesters ago.”

Lucy thought her heart screeched to a halt. “What?”

Jess sighed. “Oh come on, Lucy. I’m not an idiot. I know you have feelings for him and Flynn. Anyone with eyes could see it.”

Oh fuck. “Does Wyatt know?”

“No, he doesn’t.” Jess took Lucy’s hand. “Listen. I’m not the jealous type. Okay? That was Wyatt’s problem, not mine. I never worried about it because I trusted you. I knew that you wouldn’t ever do anything. You were always a good friend to me, and a good friend to Wyatt, without ever crossing that line. And I just wanted to thank you for it.”

“…for being a decent person?” Lucy asked. She squeezed Jess’s hand. “I wouldn’t ever, Jess. I’d never have hurt you like that.”

“I know.” Jess squeezed right back. “So I’m saying thank you.”

Lucy didn’t see why she should be thanked. It had been the right thing to do, the respectful thing to do. Whatever she felt for Wyatt, he had been dating someone else and so she’d never said or done anything about it. Love was great and all but so was self-respect and thinking about Jess’s feelings.

But she appreciated the thanks anyway. She hugged Jess. “Thank you for being kind about it,” she whispered. “So many people would’ve been awful.”

Jess hugged her back. “Of course. You’re my friend, and you acted like it, and I’ll always be yours.” She paused. “Oh, and of course, if you want him now… you’re welcome to him and good luck.”

Lucy laughed. If Wyatt wanted her… but she couldn’t tell Jess that Wyatt was still hung up on her. “Now let’s get you something that makes you look less like a Victorian ghost.”

 

* * *

 

 

Noah was up in the lighting booth when Dave found him.

It wasn’t like he’d come back to school with the plan to find someone to replace Lucy. He’d figured he’d just enjoy being single again. He’d really been in love with her, and he couldn’t blame her for being honest, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt.

But now Dave was being all flirty and nice and… he was a great guy, they’d been friends thanks to being in the same department for three years…

“All up here on your lonesome?” Dave asked, grinning and leaning against the wall.

“Pretty much. Unless some cute guy were to come up and keep me company.”

“Hmmm… I see any guys like that, I’ll let you know,” Dave replied. He walked over to see what Noah was doing. “Programming lights already?”

“I wish. Just making sure nothing got screwed up over the summer. I swear there isn’t a ghost in this theatre but _something_ keeps messing with the damn lightboard and the light gels. I’ve organized them three times and they always get messed up.”

“There is a ghost,” Dave replied. “Jess saw it, she’ll swear to it.”

“Jess was also three sheets to the wind at the time.”

“I bet you’re the type who gets scared and doesn’t like to admit it,” Dave teased.

“No,” Noah replied. You know, like a liar.

“Aww, don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

Noah realized that they were standing rather close, only a few inches apart. He could’ve reached out and kissed Dave easily, if he wanted to.

…he did want to.

“I’m sorry,” Dave said, pulling back. “You’re—you’re probably still getting over Lucy, I shouldn’t—”

“Actually,” Noah said, feeling bold, “it’s been a lot easier to get over her recently.”

“Oh?” Dave gave a crooked smile. “So… if I were to ask you to dinner tonight, you’d say…”

Five minutes later Mason yelled up, “ _I’m not giving you two class credit to make out all over the lightboard!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun note: There really is a rumor about a ghost at my college's theatre. I was the poor asshole who organized the gel lights three times after someone, spectral or otherwise, kept messing them up.


	6. Chapter 6

Jiya waited until the end of rehearsal to walk up to Rufus. He was wearing just a white tank top and shorts today because Mason thought ‘rehearsal warm up’ meant ‘Navy SEAL boot camp exercises’ and… damn.

To be honest, Jiya had been, ah, what was the term? Oh yes, _thirsting_ after Rufus since freshman orientation. She was a year younger than everyone else, having skipped a grade because, y’know, genius level intellect, and she had been finding herself intimidated by everyone.

She’d gotten separated from her group and hopelessly lost on the way to her dorm, and had thought she might actually burst into tears, when this cute as fuck guy with a jaunty ‘20s cap like he was a newsie appeared at her side.

“Hey, I’m Rufus.” He had then grinned at her. “You seemed lost, need some help?”

“Oh, um, thank you. I’m trying to get to Anderson dorm?”

Rufus had given a put-upon sigh. “I suppose I could help you, even if the universe dictates that we can’t be friends.”

What? “Why?”

He had pointed at her Starfleet insignia pin. “You’re a Trekkie. I’m a Star Wars fan. Never the twain shall meet.”

“Funny,” she had replied. “I didn’t think you were the type of guy to let something like that stop you.”

Rufus had offered her his arm. “You know what? You’re absolutely right.”

She’d been smitten ever since.

But had Rufus ever done anything? Nope. Not when he got stars in his eyes during her audition for _Wicked_ (she’d only been in the chorus that time but who the hell cared) when she’d sung ‘Journey to the Past’. Not when they were scene partners for Acting II class. Not through three years of being classmates and castmates and friends.

And Jiya was rather tired of it.

She saw him looking at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. How blind could he possibly be? She’d done everything short of stripping in front of him while having someone wave a massive SHE’S INTO YOU flag.

But this time…

“Hey, Rufus? Are you doing anything right now?”

“You know I’ve always got time for you, lucky charm,” Rufus replied. Everyone joked that Jiya could predict the future and brought them good luck, but only Rufus called her that. It always made her chest warm. “What’s up?”

“I’m feeling a little… nervous about ‘On My Own’. Would you mind coming and listening to me? I got a practice room reserved.”

“Sure thing.” Rufus smiled at her. His smiles were like goddamn sunshine, if you asked Jiya. “Let me just talk to Noah real quick, poor guy’s already looking like he wants to tear his hair out.”

Jiya snorted. “I think he and Dave are still, ah, ‘working on the lightboard’ so maybe you want to wait.”

Rufus paused, then looked up at the lighting booth. “Um… Noah? Buddy? You good?”

There was the distinct sound of ruffling and gasping and then Noah stuck his head out. His hair was a mess and there was a bruise on his neck that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago. “Yup! All good up here! Thanks Rufus!”

Jiya gave Rufus an _I told you so_ look.

“Okay then…” Rufus shrugged. “That was fast.”

“Well, y’know, when most people like each other, they say something about it,” Jiya replied.

Flynn stormed past them, followed by Wyatt who was still yelling at him about something, followed by Lucy saying, “You’re both _children_ and I’m going to _bang your heads together until there is permanent brain damage_!”

Jiya pointed. “They are not most people.”

The practice room was empty, as it should have been, and Jiya took care to lock the door. Just in case.

“So, what are you worried about?” Rufus asked.

“Um, everything?” Jiya replied. “I just—this is such an iconic song. I have to be perfect. This, and then ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, they’re the gold standard for female solos. I have to bring down the house.”

Rufus sat down on the piano bench. “You will. Give it to me.”

“…give it to me?”

“Yeah, sing it.”

“Right now?”

“Right now, without thinking about it, just launch into it, go go go!”

Flustered, Jiya started.

_And now I’m all alone again, nowhere to go, no one to turn to…_

_Without a home, without a friend, without a face to say hello to…_

Rufus watched with rapt attention. Jiya had never told him, but whenever she sang on stage or in auditions, she always pretended that she was singing to him. He watched her sing like she was someone special, someone breathtaking, and so she always sang just for him.

She wanted to tell him but it was such a big emotion, such a deep feeling, that when she tried to put it into words, words just didn’t… seem adequate. How did you take a feeling as big as an ocean, as big as a galaxy, and put it into something so small as a set of words?

_The city goes to bed…_

_And I can live inside my head._

For the first time, she felt like she was getting the depth of the song, the meaning of it, rather than just hitting notes. How many times had she done the same thing as Eponine, imagining Rufus holding her, playing video games with her, kissing her? How many times had she thought about what it would be like, imagined it so clearly that it almost felt like it was happening?

_And although I know that he is blind,_

_Still I say,_

_There’s a way for us…_

Jesus Christ, Rufus, please get the point this time.

“What do you think?”

Rufus gaped at her for a moment. “Um, wow, okay, first of all. Wow. But, ah, you don’t want me to talk about how great it was—though it was great—so why don’t we start with…”

Jiya wanted to slap her forehead. God dammit Rufus.

“—but honestly?” Rufus finished up, standing. “You don’t ever have anything to worry about, Jiya. You just started working on this song, of course you might be flat or sharp here or there. You already sound amazing and you’re going to sound even better when opening night comes.”

She could help but smile at him, feeling herself melt all over again. “Thanks, Rufus.”

“Anytime.” He hugged her, then pulled back but kept his hands wrapped around her waist. Jiya could swear her heart was going to collapse from how fast it was beating. “I know Lucy gets all the praise and she deserves it but, you’re a star too, Jiya. Don’t forget that.”

“So are you. You’re going to be amazing.”

“The other day, you said…” Rufus cleared his throat, his arms still around her. “You said that I would make a good Enjolras, because of the… Apollo thing. What did you mean by that?”

“Well, Grantaire compares him to the god Apollo. And I think that fits you too.” _Because you’re handsome, you idiot!_

“Ah.”

They stood there for a moment, only inches apart, and Jiya was hoping… hoping…

“Um, okay, so.” Rufus stepped back. “You want to go over it one more time? Or grab dinner?”

…sometimes she really wanted to punch that guy.

 

* * *

 

“Let me get this straight,” Amy said around a mouthful of pasta. “You sang a song, to him, that includes lyrics that say, ‘I know you’re a blind idiot but I’m hoping you’ll figure it out anyway’, and he still didn’t get it?”

Jiya groaned, her head buried in her arms. “I know, it’s pathetic.”

“Why didn’t you just say, ‘Rufus I like you’?” Lucy asked.

Jiya glared up at her. “I don’t know, Lucy, why don’t you say that to Flynn and Wyatt?”

“That’s different and you know it!” Lucy hissed.

“This is why I drink,” Jess said to Amy in a stage whisper. In a normal voice she added, “Just… make out with him or something, Jiya.”

“Okay but what if I’m wrong?”

“You’re not wrong,” all three women chorused.

“Go after him,” Amy said. “If you want someone, you tell them. Like this.”

She turned to face Jess. “Jessica, you are gorgeous and your arms make me want to weep with joy. Also your boobs are fantastic and I would like to use them as a pillow. May I do so in a completely non-platonic manner?”

Jess went bug-eyed.

“Okay so it doesn’t have to be quite that graphic,” Lucy said, turning to look at Jiya—which meant she missed the _I was dead serious_  that Amy mouthed to Jess and Jess’s subsequent blush. “But Amy’s got a point. You need to be honest with him.”

“All hypocrisy aside,” Jess added, “Lucy’s right.”

“Hypocrisy!?”

“ _How_ long have you been in love with those boys?”

“Wyatt was dating you!”

“Flynn wasn’t!”

“I’ll give him until opening night,” Jiya said.

None of them heard her.


	7. Chapter 7

Flynn sat down next to Rufus and nudged him. “Did you see Jiya?”

Rufus glared at him. “Yes, I saw Jiya.”

Sometimes, he regretted that Flynn and Wyatt knew that he had feelings for Jiya. They were his best friends but neither of them ever missed an opportunity to needle him about it.

Especially when Jiya did things like look especially pretty. Today they were all trying out their costumes, and Jiya in her Eponine dress was… well, if Rufus hadn’t already realized he was attracted to her, that would’ve done it.

“You should just tell her. It’s senior year, man, you don’t have a lot of time left.”

“Pot meet kettle,” Rufus replied. “You going to tell Lucy you want to marry her, sire her children, push her around in a wheelchair and scatter her ashes?”

Flynn scowled at him. “Lucy has feelings for Wyatt. Why the dumbass isn’t doing anything about it now that he’s not with Jess I don’t know. But Jiya actually returns your feelings.”

“I have an amazing thing to tell you about Lucy…” Rufus started, but then Emma walked up. For fuck’s sake, could she just stop existing or something?

“Hello boys.” Emma folded her arms and smirked. “Rufus, I don’t suppose you saw Jiya?”

“I see her every day, we have Theatre History together,” Rufus replied. Don’t rise to the bait, he told himself. Don’t rise to the bait…

“You know, I didn’t _think_ I was super into her,” Emma mused. “But in that outfit… and I mean, since Jess still isn’t giving me the time of day…”

“Rightly so,” Flynn cut in.

“…maybe Jiya will?” Emma shrugged. “I mean, since you’re not actually doing anything about the massive crush on her everyone knows you have.”

“Hey, Emma,” Flynn said lightly. “How about you fuck off?”

“Hey, Flynn,” Emma replied. “How about you grow a pair and do something about that hard on you get whenever you fight with Wyatt?”

“This is why we decided she’d be the Wolf if we ever did _Bad Sexual Relationships_ ,” Rufus noted.

Flynn looked at him. “I thought we decided to call it _Bad Decision Making_?”

“It’s called _Into the Woods_ , for the love of God,” Emma snapped. “Call it by its actual name!”

“And yet, you knew what musical it was.”

“Because there’s only one musical that has a character called ‘the Wolf’!”

“Emma,” Flynn sighed. “Honestly, seriously, from the bottom of my heart: Rufus and I don’t enjoy this little game of yours where you come over and hurl insults and we hurl them back. I don’t know if this is your weird way of trying to start a friendship with us again or if it’s your form of blood sport but we really, really have better things to do with our time.”

Two spots of color appeared high up on Emma’s cheeks. “What, like fuck Wyatt? He looks like he could do with a good dicking—”

Rufus did not expect Flynn to move that fast, standing up and using every bit of his height to loom over Emma. “How about you take your opinions and shove them up your ass?” he growled. “And if you’ve got a problem with me, you leave Wyatt out of it.”

“Oh, so Lucy’s fair game?” Emma replied, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Flynn’s gaze darkened like a tiger about to rip the throat out of a foolish hunter, but Rufus stood up quickly and got in between. “Emma, seriously, this is not a stick you want to poke him with.”

Mason walked in. “All right, layabouts, time for vocal warm up! And let me see your costumes!”

Emma glared at them but backed off. Rufus heaved a sigh of relief and looked over at Flynn. “Don’t let her see that she gets at you. It’s like a drug or something to her I swear.”

Flynn visibly forced himself to breathe and calm down. “I know. I know, she just…”

“Knows how to get under your skin, yeah.” Rufus grinned. “I’m aware.”

Wyatt walked past them, clearly in a bad mood about something.

“Although,” Rufus admitted, “she might have had a point.”

“About what?”

Rufus nodded at Wyatt. “I think he needs some sex, he’s way too wound up.”

Flynn rolled his eyes, but Rufus didn’t fail to notice that Flynn’s cheeks had gone a bit pink.

 

* * *

 

Flynn wanted to know what had crawled up Wyatt’s ass so that he could yank it back out again and use it to slap Wyatt full across the face.

“Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?” he snapped as he and Wyatt once again messed up on the choreography for ‘The Confrontation’.

“Like you even care,” Wyatt replied, apparently spoiling for a fight.

“Contrary to what you’ve seemed determined to believe for the past three years, Wyatt, I actually do care, so maybe you could stop treating me like the enemy—”

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from the guy who’s spent three years making it clear he’s the better actor and is going to get all the roles.”

“You make it so goddamn difficult to help you, you know that, right? You just—could you stop fucking being a porcupine for two goddamn seconds—”

“Being a _what_?”

“Maybe we should take five?” Noah suggested to Mason.

Mason sighed and buried his face in his hands.

 

* * *

 

Lucy found Wyatt hiding out in the small pocket behind the barricade and underneath one of the sets of stairs. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“…you know Flynn doesn’t like to fight with you, right?”

“He just snarks and snarks and won’t fucking _stop_ and sometimes I just—I have a bad day and I can’t fucking handle more sass, all right?”

“You don’t have to snap at me. And you should just tell him that, not be an asshole.”

“I’m the asshole?”

“Wyatt, think very carefully about the tone of voice you’re using with the girl who’s trying to help you out.”

“It’s fine. We all know he’s your favorite anyway—ow!” Wyatt gaped at her. “Did you just pinch me?”

“I’ll do it again,” Lucy threatened. “I don’t like Flynn better than you, I like you both equally, so cut it out with the inferiority complex, it’s not attractive.”

“Lucy, just date the guy and—ow!”

“I will keep doing this.”

“What are you, five?”

“What are _you_ , blind?”

“I don’t even know what that means!”

“Men!” Lucy snapped, crawling back out of the hiding space. “Why I’m attracted to you idiots I will never know, I should go back to fucking women.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt walked over and slumped his forehead onto Jess’s shoulder. “I’ve had a shit day.”

“Not your girlfriend anymore, Wyatt, not obligated to hear about your shit days.”

“…I see sympathy isn’t something I’m going to find around here.”

“Not when you’re being self-pitying. Go bother Lucy.”

“She’s mad at me.”

“Go bother Flynn.”

“He’s mad at me.”

“Go ask Rufus why they’re mad at you.”

“Why did I date you for so long?”

“Because you’re codependent and emotionally stunted.”

“Jesus Christ, what, did Amy say no when you asked if you could sit on her face?”

“Jessica, if you could get onstage instead of slapping your ex, your director—which is me—would be much happier,” Mason yelled wearily.

 

* * *

 

Emma sidled up to Jess as she waited for her entrance. “Do you need me to mess Wyatt up for you?”

Jess sighed. She really didn’t want to do this. Sleeping with Emma had been a mistake, although it had felt like the right thing at the time. Emma had been upset about Nicholas and just how misogynistic she was realizing he was, she’d broken things off and was vulnerable and had needed a shoulder to cry on. They’d had a long talk and Jess had been getting used to being single and she hadn’t had sex in months and one thing had led to another…

But she had never liked Emma’s violent streak, or her strange anger against Lucy, or how she’d dropped Rufus and then Flynn as friends. And she didn’t appreciate Emma deciding that apparently they were something more than they were: a quick hookup.

“No, Emma, thank you,” Jess said.

Emma cleared her throat. “Look, am I really that awful? I thought…”

Jess sighed. “Emma, it was a one night stand. It was never meant to be anything more than that. I’m not sure what you think we are but… we’re not together, or going to be together, or anything like that.”

Emma’s eyes went sharp and cold. “And here I thought you were maybe the one person in this entire department who didn’t hate me.”

“Honestly? I don’t hate you.” Jess turned to face her, folding her arms. “But I don’t like you either. Not after how you’ve treated my friends all these years. One moment of vulnerability doesn’t make up for all the years you were shit to people I care about. So just—back off, okay? I’m sorry if you’re unhappy but you did this to yourself.”

Her cue came and Jess went onstage, leaving Emma to fume.

 

* * *

 

Mason often wanted to tell his students that they were the reason he drank. He loved them, he really did, they were like the kids he’d never had, but dear God…

“Mr. Baumgardner, if you could stop seducing my stage manager and get to your place so you can seduce your actual stage partner, that would be wonderful.”

“No offense,” Jess said, “But Dave doesn’t have what it takes to seduce me.” She winked at Amy.

Mason sighed. “We’re all aware of that, Jessica, thank you.”

He checked the rest of the cast. Wyatt was sitting by himself and looking like the human version of a storm cloud. Lucy was making aborted movements to go over to him, seemed to realize that whatever had happened between them she wasn’t the one who should apologize, and would then sit down again. Flynn was pacing up and down the room and had been doing that since he and Wyatt had their argument during their duet, Emma was doing that thing where she looked like she was figuring out how she wanted to murder everyone, Jess looked exhausted—so did Rufus—and Amy looked like a confused puppy that had been plopped into the middle of a boxing match and had no idea what was happening. To top it all off, Jiya looked pissed that Rufus hadn’t said anything about how pretty she looked in her costume.

The only person who seemed at all happy was Dave, but that probably had something to do with how he and Noah were making out every chance they got.

“Rufus?” Mason called.

Rufus hurried over. “Yeah?”

“Care to explain to me why my cast seems to want to all kill each other?”

“Um… you really want to know?”

“Why would I ask if I didn’t want to know?”

“Because you’re always telling us you don’t care about our petty drama and infighting you just want us to hit our marks and remember our lines.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t know who’s going to murder who first and I’d at least like some understudies set up.” Mason paused. “Hang on how is Nicholas somehow the only one who hasn’t pissed people off? Usually he's the one starting everything.”

“Noah has him practicing with the conductor downstairs.”

“Ah.”

Rufus sighed, then recited in a 'so here's what you missed on Glee' voice:

“Okay. So. Wyatt had a bad day, from what I hear he slept through his alarm and spilled his coffee and did bad on a test. Emma got under Flynn’s skin and Flynn’s defense mechanism is to be sassy so he was sassy at Wyatt so Wyatt was an asshole and so Flynn was an asshole back and called him a porcupine which I think actually Wyatt liked and he didn’t like that he liked it so he got even worse. So then Lucy tried to talk to Wyatt about being a jerk and Wyatt was a jerk to her because he’s somehow missed that she’s in love with both him and Flynn equally, so Lucy’s now angry at Wyatt, then Wyatt went to Jess but Jess wasn’t having it so now she and Wyatt are mad at each other, and then Emma’s just being a bitch so Flynn, Jess, and I are all mad at her, and Amy’s probably confused because Jess is sending her mixed messages since she clearly wants to bang her but Lucy told us she’d kill whoever seduced Amy so…” Rufus paused. “I think that’s everything?”

“Jiya’s mad at you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“You didn’t tell her she looks beautiful in her costume.”

“…what?”

Mason sighed. “Ah, okay, I figured out that problem. Rufus do me a favor? Can you bring the whisky from the drawer in my desk?”

“No.”

“Betrayed by my own pseudo son.” Mason stood up. “All right, great work, Dave and Jess, let’s go back now, I want us to run the blocking on ‘Look Down’ again please before Gavroche has to go home, child labor laws and all that.”

Denise, who was supervising since it was her son who was playing Gavroche, raised an eyebrow that told Mason she was not amused.

Mason surveyed his cast. Something was going to have to be done about these romantic and platonic messes, and soon.


	8. Chapter 8

Flynn found Wyatt hiding out in his usual hiding spot.

“You know it’s not a good hiding place if we all know where you are,” Flynn noted, crawling up into the set with him. Wyatt always found a hiding place on set and then made that his hideaway.

Wyatt was curled up in on himself, his eyes red like he’d been crying. “I’m not in the mood for a sarcastic comment, Garcia.”

Flynn reached out, brushing Wyatt’s hair back out of his eyes. “I know. I could tell you were having a bad day and I just—I’m sorry. Emma pissed me off and it just… I was an ass.”

“Yeah, well, I was more of an ass. I was a triple threat.”

“Lucy and Jess?”

“Yup.”

Flynn kept carding through Wyatt’s hair. Wyatt and Lucy just… did that to him, brought out this softness in him that he’d thought he’d lost when Lorena and Iris had died.

“I’m sorry,” Wyatt said, his voice rough and barely audible. “You—you never are as bad as I am, I’m always the one who starts things, and yet you’re the one who comes and apologizes.”

 _It’s because I love you, idiot._ It would be so easy to say, but… he knew what the response would be. Wyatt had always been painfully obvious in how much he loved Lucy, even as he struggled with Jess to figure out their relationship.

“It’s okay. I should know by now when to stop needling you.”

Wyatt nodded, his eyes closed, and Flynn realized that his hand had migrated down, his thumb brushing softly against Wyatt’s temple. God, this was so dangerous for his heart.

“I did get you something.”

Wyatt’s eyes slowly opened. “Hmm?”

Flynn grabbed the coffee and set it in front of Wyatt. “Since you spilled yours this morning.”

Wyatt gave him a soft smile that made Flynn want to do a lot of stupid things, like kiss him so he could see what that smile felt like against his mouth.

“Don’t tell Rufus this,” Wyatt whispered, “but sometimes I’m pretty sure you’re my best friend.”

Ah, best friend. What every man in love wanted to hear.

Flynn pulled his hand away from Wyatt’s face. “Don’t tell Rufus either, but pretty sure it’s mutual.” He winked, climbing back down.

Best friend. Sure. He could… he could live with that.

 

* * *

 

Rehearsal was… interesting.

Jess started things off right away when Emma walked up to her and tried to make amends. “I do so hate it when we quarrel darling, don’t you?”

Jess, in true acting fashion, allowed her thought process to show on her face for proper comedic effect. What was the line…? Oh, yes. “Go to Hell.” That was it.

Flynn had to stuff his sleeve into his mouth to muffle his laughter.

Wyatt was unusually subdued, the way he got when he’d screwed up and he knew it and was trying to be invisible. Jiya was obviously still ticked off at Rufus, which Flynn thought was a little unfair—Rufus could hardly be expected to tell Jiya she looked lovely when he was too busy picking his jaw up off the floor from looking at her.

Nicholas and Emma’d had some kind of fight as well—not that Flynn cared, but it was making the Thenardier scenes hilarious in a way that Mason had clearly not intended.

To top it all off, the crew was hanging lights.

Which sometimes meant that in the middle of a scene, Mason or a crewmember would yell “Hold!” at the top of their lungs so they could settle on the lighting for that moment. And, y’know, in case a light fell on someone.

Flynn might have been hoping one would fall on Nicholas but he knew he wasn’t the only one so he didn’t feel so bad about it.

“You all good?” he asked Lucy, who was curled up as Fantine and cowering against one of the stage walls.

“Yeah.” Lucy yawned. “Just stayed up too late with an essay.”

“Has Wyatt apologized yet?”

“Not yet, but I’ve been a hermit in my room so he hasn’t really had the chance.” Lucy and Wyatt’s only scene together was during this scene where Flynn picked Lucy up in his arms and declared he would help Fantine, and then during ‘The Confrontation’ when Fantine was dead on the bed in the background.

Not exactly conducive to having a conversation in between runs.

Flynn glanced over at where Mason was telling Jess something, and then apparently directing Jess and Amy to do something together backstage. “It’s a project,” Mason said.

Flynn knew that tone. It was the ‘I’ve got a scheme and I’m not telling you what it is’ tone.

“Um… Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you noticed…” _that Amy wants to ‘change her major’ to Jess?_ “…that Jess and Amy seem close?”

Lucy frowned at him. “Garcia, your tone concerns me.”

“Ah…”

“Flynn! From the top!”

“Yes, Mason.”

The rest of the scene went fine, right up until the point where Flynn had to pick Lucy up in her, ah, slightly scandalous dress (a ripped, ruined version of the dress she started the act in, and one that did… things… to her breasts) and carry her supposedly offstage, but pausing for a lighting change.

And Mason called ‘hold’.

“Hold,” Flynn yelled in reply, standing still.

Lucy curled into his chest, going from sick and languid to very much alive and squirming.

Flynn tried to remember the heart attack symptoms because he was pretty sure he was having one right this second. First Wyatt and now Lucy, could the universe really not give him a break?

“You don’t mind if I just…” Lucy yawned, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling into him like a cat.

“Nope, go right ahead.” _I always imagined dying before age twenty-five anyway, it’s no problem._

Lucy then demonstrated her amazing ability to fall asleep anywhere in 0.2 seconds.

“Is she _napping_?” Wyatt demanded from across the stage. “How!? How does she do that!?”

“Witchcraft,” Noah told them, making notes in his stage manager book and singing ‘Master of the House’ under his breath.

Flynn just tried to stay very, very still and not think at all about the very warm, very soft, very trusting Lucy napping with her head on his chest. If he turned his head he could bury his nose into her hair, smell the vanilla-sandalwood of her shampoo, hold her more closely…

No, Flynn. Bad. Stop that.

They stood there for about ten minutes until one of the lighting crew gave Mason a thumbs-up and he yelled, “All right, from the top again! …Flynn please wake up the cat in your arms.”

Flynn shook Lucy gently. “Hey.” He had to swallow down the endearments that threatened to spill out. “Lucy, time to go again.”

Lucy stirred, making a tiny unhappy mewling noise and yawning, tightening her hold on him momentarily as she stretched. It was a good thing they had such a difference in size, otherwise her moving around might have thrown him off balance.

“Mmkay, I’m good to go,” she murmured, looking up at him with sleepy dark eyes.

God, he was so in love with her.

“Preston, if you messed up your voice I will be very disappointed!” Mason yelled.

Lucy braced herself against Flynn like he was the floorboards and dropped her jaw, letting out a High D note that shot straight through to the back of the theatre.

“Satisfactory,” Mason replied.

“Satisfactory,” Lucy grumbled as Flynn carried her back over to her original spot and gently set her down. “I take a ten minute nap and can belt a High D and he calls it satisfactory.”

“Would you prefer exceptional?” Flynn asked.

Lucy smiled up at him, patting his chest. “I like you. You can stay.”

If only she knew.

 

* * *

 

When Mason had pulled Jess aside and said, “I’ll make sure you and Amy get all the alone time you want if you do me a favor during Jiya’s solo,” Jess had been smart and said, “yes.”

It was playing with fire because Lucy could and would murder her, but Jess really, really wanted to get away from Emma and she really, really wanted more time with Amy and if nothing else, she needed to find a private time to tell Amy just what Lucy had said about anyone in the theatre department dating her beloved baby sister.

Before she could get to Amy, though, Wyatt intercepted her.

“Really not the time,” Jess warned him.

“This’ll be quick,” Wyatt promised. “I need to stop coming to you and dumping on you with all my problems when I’m upset, you’re right, I’m an ass to Flynn half the time, and I love you, platonically, and I owe you a milkshake.”

“That was a perfect apology, now let’s suit the actions to the words and let me go do my… thing,” Jess finished lamely.

“Lucy’s going to re-enact medieval torture devices on you.”

“I’m well aware.” Jess put her hands on his shoulders. “You know this would all be so much easier if you would just tell them you love them, right?”

“I think that ship sailed,” Wyatt admitted. “I mean, after the mess we were making of our relationship…” He looked over at Flynn and Lucy and shrugged. “I lost any chance with Lucy and I don’t think I ever had one with Flynn.”

“You’d be surprised,” Jess said dryly. “It’s senior year, Wyatt. Take a few risks.”

Then she went to find Amy.

 

* * *

 

Flynn was singing with little Cosette—Denise’s daughter—when Wyatt sat down next to her.

“Hey.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow at him. She was perfectly willing to admit that Flynn needed to learn when to stop pushing Wyatt’s buttons, but that didn’t excuse Wyatt taking it out on her. She’d only been trying to help.

Why she was in love with either man, honestly, she didn’t know.

“I don’t know why you put up with me,” Wyatt said. “Really. I kind of jerked you around with Jess and now… but anyway, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, then passed her a milkshake. He had to have run out in the middle of rehearsal to get it—a huge no-no if he’d gotten caught. Milkshakes from the campus diner were the accepted ‘I’m sorry’ present among the theatre crew, or as a common way to thank someone for doing a favor.

Lucy checked to make sure Mason couldn’t see that they had food backstage, and then dug in. “You’re getting better at apologizing. You used to always refuse to and say it wasn’t your fault.”

“A summer of therapy will help with that.”

Lucy choked on her milkshake and Wyatt had to thump her on the back. “Therapy?”

“Jess convinced me. It was… really helpful.”

“I’ll bet.” Lucy eyed him. “You talk about your dad?”

“Yeah. And my mom. And Jess. And…” Wyatt’s ears went pink.

“And what.”

He cleared his throat, looking off into the middle distance. “Um, the fact that I’m bi.”

Lucy choked on her milkshake again.

She’d always suspected—from the way Wyatt looked at Flynn and often interacted with him, the way Flynn so easily made Wyatt blush—but she’d never been sure.

Oh, God, a whole host of sexual fantasies just got that much closer to reality. This was not good for her health.

“Maybe I should stop talking until you finish that,” Wyatt said, thumping her on the back again.

Lucy set her milkshake aside and hugged him. “I’m proud of you. None of that had to be easy.”

Wyatt gave a harsh laugh. “It wasn’t. But it was, y’know, good. Helped me get over Jess and see that she was right and we were codependent. Helped me work out my anger at my dad, my anger at my mom for dying and leaving me to be raised by that bastard.”

“How did you know you were…”

Wyatt fiddled with his cuff, his face pink. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“When have I ever told anyone your secrets, hmm?” she asked, laying her head on his shoulder.

Wyatt flashed her a fond smile. “It was, um, realizing I was attracted to Flynn.”

Lucy would’ve choked if she’d still been eating the milkshake. _Do not think about them making out do not think about them making out don’t think about being in between them oh fuck…_

“That’s…”

“Hugely awkward?” Wyatt groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“I was going to say not surprising,” Lucy replied.

Wyatt’s head shot up. “Fuck, you think he knows?”

Given that Flynn hadn’t noticed that Lucy had wanted to suck his dick since the second week of freshmen semester… “I think you’re good.”

Wyatt slumped in relief and Lucy picked up her milkshake again. “Open.”

Wyatt obediently let her feed him some of the milkshake. “Seriously Luce, don’t tell him.”

“I won’t.” _I’ll just be fantasizing about this for the rest of my lonely lonely life but it’s fiiiiine._ “Just… don’t take it out on him, okay? It’s not the other person’s fault you have feelings for them.”

“You’re right. Why do you have to be right?”

Lucy laughed. “Of course I’m right. Butthead.”

“Oh no.” Wyatt rolled his eyes but played along. “I haven’t been called ‘butthead’ since second grade.”

“Not to your face.”

He smiled at her, warm and soft, and dammit, of course Wyatt had to be attracted to the other guy she was in love with, of course the universe was just going to taunt her like this.

It would be so easy to just say it. To blurt out, _fuck I’m in love with you, I’ve been in love with you for three years_.

“Oh fuck,” Wyatt blurted out. “That’s my cue.”

And he was gone.

…welp.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t see why Mason had to send us to do this,” Amy noted. “He could have sent a crewmember, they’re the ones in charge of props. Aren’t we actors supposed to touch only our props and nothing but our props so help us God?”

“Mason’s unconventional,” Jess said. She was pretty sure ‘matchmaking his students’ counted as unconventional.

“Well…” Amy shrugged, turning and smirking at Jess. “It does put us in this scary dark room together. Alone.”

“You’re scared of the dark?” Jess teased, sitting down on a spare chair.

“Play along with me, Jess,” Amy replied, sauntering over to her. “What if I’m scared and need you to hold me?”

And then she plopped right down into Jess’s lap and kissed her.

For a moment Jess’s only thought was _oh fuck God yes_ and she kissed back with enthusiasm as Amy happily twisted her hips, grinning against Jess’s mouth when she found the exact angle that made Jess gasp into her mouth.

“Okay, okay, whoa,” Jess panted, pulling back. Amy was in her lap _Amy was in her lap oh fuck—_ “Listen to me very carefully. You are super sweet and funny and gorgeous and adorable. But your sister used her power as president of the Drama Club to inform us all that she would gut any one of us who touched you and I’ve seen her try to stab Emma with a fork. In the eye.”

“When did Lucy try to stab Emma?” Amy sounded rather amused by this and not fearing for Jess’s life as she should be.

“During _Sweeney Todd_ , it’s a long story. Flynn had to haul her back or Emma would be wearing an eye patch. The point is, your sister can and will spill my guts, _literally_ , if I touch you. So…”

Jess frowned as Amy shimmied off her lap and got onto her knees. “What—what are you doing?”

“You said you can’t touch me, right?” Amy asked.

“Um…”

“But Lucy didn’t say anything about me touching you.” Amy got her hands underneath Jess’s skirts and spread her legs. “So be good and keep your hands on the chair, will you?”

Jess opened her mouth to argue that they were a) in the prop room where anyone—probably Wyatt or Emma knowing her luck—could walk in, b) she was in her costume and the costume department would kill her and hang her from the flagpole as a warning to others if they found stains on her skirts and c) this was probably not the time to do anything, ten minutes before rehearsal started…

But then Amy was kissing up her thighs and Jess kind of forgot what breathing was.

Okay. O _kay_ , oh, wow, fuck, Lucy might (understandably) want to protect her sister from the insane sexual shenanigans of the theatre department but this was far from Amy’s first rodeo if the way she was _ohholyfuckinggod—_

Amy got her tongue on Jess’s clit and that was about when all thought fled.

Fifteen minutes later when Nicholas asked her why the hell she looked so relaxed, Jess replied, “Loopholes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: milkshakes were in fact the currency of favor repayment/apology in my theatre department, although none of us were foolhardy enough to eat one backstage. We aren't certain where our theatre professor put the body of the last person who did that.


	9. Chapter 9

Jiya held still as Karl the ASM transferred the mic pack from Lucy to Jiya for Act II. “You look fantastic,” Lucy gushed. “Honestly. Why have we never dated again?”

“I’m in love with one idiot and you’re in love with two idiots because you’re an overachiever.”

“We should’ve just hooked up, saved each other the trouble.”

“Damn right. Why did we fall in love with men again?”

“There’s something terribly wrong with us.”

Jiya sighed. “Seriously, Lucy, what the hell am I doing wrong? He won’t even look at me.”

“Honey, I can’t stop staring at your chest and we’ve established I’m hopelessly in love with Tweeledum and Tweedleidiot. I think he’s not looking at you because he won’t be able to walk.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I’m dead serious, Jiya.”

“It’s been three years!” Jiya hissed.

Karl shushed her and she lowered her voice. “It’s been three years, Lucy, if he was going to say something he would have.”

“Look.” Lucy sighed, reaching out to adjust Jiya’s skirt. “Rufus is a great guy. And when he has to be confrontational, he will be, because he stands up for what he believes in and what he knows is right. But he’s the geek. He’s always been the geek. He got bullied a lot in high school. He’s a black guy, and he wasn’t into sports, and he grew up poor. I guarantee you his self-esteem is nonexistent. You’re gorgeous and sassy and talented and take what you want, no wonder he’s intimidated.”

“But I don’t see any of that,” Jiya protested. “He’s smart and gorgeous and he makes me laugh. I don’t care about any of the rest, I don’t care if he’s not a jock or owns a… give me a fancy car name.”

“I don’t know, what does Mason drive?”

“A Porsche,” Karl supplied.

“Thank you, Karl,” Lucy said.

Karl just looked done with all of them. That was Karl’s usual facial expression, though.

“My point is,” Lucy said, “You need to tell him that you feel these things for him. You need to tell him what you see. Because I guarantee you, you give him these opportunities and he’s about to take them, and then he remembers who he is—who he thinks he is—and he decides he couldn’t be enough for you. And besides, what have you got to lose at this point?”

“You ought to be asking yourself that,” Jiya pointed out.

Okay, it was time for her solo. Fuck, talking with Lucy had made her want to cry.

Well, at least her acting would be good.

 

* * *

 

Rufus sat in the audience, watching Jiya come on stage. It was the last rehearsal they were allowed to sit in the audience and watch when they weren’t in a scene and he wanted to see her this way one last time before he had to stay in the wings.

Jess sat down next to him, looking blissed-out.

“I take it you and Amy are having fun in that prop room,” Rufus noted.

“She can do the splits,” Jess said dreamily.

“Too much information, that’s the little sister of the woman I love as a sister. Therefore she is also my sister.”

“You know, you could be having just as much fun as I am,” Jess pointed out. She indicated Jiya, who was starting to sing.

“Jess, please don’t.”

“I’m serious.”

Jess pointed at Jiya. “Listen to what she’s singing.”

“I know the words, Jess.”

“No, really listen.”

_And when I lose my way I close my eyes… and he and has found me._

“You hear that?” Jess asked. Rufus watched, pretty sure Jiya was about to cry, her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed, her hands shaking as she gestured. “Rufus, where the hell do you think all that emotion is coming from. Who do you think she could possibly be thinking about while she’s singing that?”

Rufus wanted to say that it was just acting. They’d all managed to pretend to be in love with each other on stage all these years. Hell, he’d kissed both Lucy and Emma for scenes and he’d never been attracted to either of them.

But then Jiya’s eyes found him, and something in her expression changed. She looked startled, vulnerable, like he’d walked in on her crying in her room. Like he’d caught her exposed.

_And although, I know that he is blind, still I say—there’s a way for us._

“That’s not acting,” Jess whispered in his ear. “She’s singing at you.”

_I love him, but every day I’m learning, all my life, I’ve only been pretending!_

Oh.

… _oh_.

“I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I?” he whispered.

Jess smiled warmly. “Lucky for you, the semester’s not over.”

 

* * *

 

Jiya wiped at her eyes as she walked offstage. Fuck, she’d just cried in front of everyone. Okay, so most people wouldn’t know that it was real and not acting but enough people knew her to be able to tell. She felt like such an idiot, like an overemotional child who couldn’t handle something as simple as a crush.

And then Rufus was grabbing her and pulling her to the side. “Jiya I’m so sorry.”

“What?”

And then he was kissing her.

Jiya melted into it, wrapping her arms around him, kissing him back with everything she had. She’d always figured that Rufus was deceptively strong, what with running around and helping build sets and all, but now she could feel all of that muscle and fuck she wasn’t letting go for anything.

Except maybe her next cue.

“Mics are still on!” Karl hissed. “Noah, turn Jiya’s mic off!”

Rufus pulled back, his hands on her hips. “I’m—I love you, I’m in love with you, I think you’re perfect, I love your _Star Trek_ sleep shirt and how you kick my ass at Mario Kart and how you insist that Anders is the best Hawke love interest and the way you look when you’re thinking and how you debate fate versus free will with me at two in the morning and the fact that you ask me to beta read your _Farscape_ fanfics and I just, I love you, I’m so in love with you.”

Jiya was aware that she was still crying and ruining her makeup but she didn’t care, it was just dress rehearsal. She couldn’t stop smiling. “I’ve wanted to date you since you gave me a tour around campus.”

“You mean I could have been kissing you this whole time and I’m the world’s biggest idiot, thank you for reminding me.”

She leaned in, nuzzling against his mouth. “Mmm but now you get to make up for it.”

He kissed her again and Jiya opened her mouth, moaning, as Karl sighed and went, “Enjolras, you’re supposed to be leading a revolution on stage. Enjolras. Rufus. Rufus!”

“Tell Mason it’s my fault,” Jiya gasped out, and then she was back to seeing how long Rufus could hold his breath with her tongue in his mouth.

 

* * *

 

Nicholas timed it well, Flynn had to give him credit for that. He waited until Amy was with the rest of the sopranos practicing their part of ‘Master of the House’ in the other room, and Wyatt had run to get a drink of water, and Flynn was going over notes with Noah up in the booth.

In other words, he waited until Lucy’s biggest defenders were occupied.

It took Flynn a moment to hear the argument, but then he caught the sound of Lucy’s voice raised in agitation and he froze.

“Ah, Noah? Mind if we continue this later?”

Noah frowned, then peered down onto the stage. Whatever he saw made his eyebrows shoot up. “Um, yeah, no problem.”

Flynn hurried down the steps to the stage level. Lucy and Nicholas were fiercely snapping at each other, Lucy’s eyes doing that sparkling thing that happened only when she was trying not to cry and her face was pale. Nicholas was doing that smug drawling thing that he did, like he wasn’t even going to bother yelling to get his point across.

Flynn got there right as Lucy had clearly had enough.

“I don’t give a flying fuck,” Lucy snapped. “You call Fantine a slut one more time—”

“Of course you’re defending her,” Nicholas snapped in return. “Since you’re such a slut you have to throw yourself at two men instead of just one.”

Flynn actually didn’t even remember moving. All he knew was that one second, he was standing about ten feet away, and then the next moment his knuckles hurt like a bitch and Nicholas was flat on his back on the stage floor and everyone was staring.

Nicholas’s nose was gushing blood and he gaped up at Flynn. “You—what the fuck—”

Amy and the other sopranos in the chorus emerged from the other room, staring, and Wyatt came back in, Dave trailing behind him, stopping short when they took in the scene.

Flynn couldn’t have given less of a damn who saw what was going on. “You _ever_ talk to her like that again—”

“Talk to who like what?” Wyatt was striding over now, eyes darting from one to the other.

“I can talk to her however I like,” Nicholas replied.

Flynn glanced at Wyatt. “Get Mason.”

Wyatt nodded, shooting a worried glance at Lucy before hurrying off.

Flynn had a strange ringing in his ears and it felt like his blood was on fire. He took another step forward, looming over Nicholas, taking advantage of all of his six feet four inches in a way that he rarely did. “Let’s get one thing straight. I. Don’t. Care. If it gets me kicked out, or sued, or even arrested. You ever talk to Lucy. You ever so much as look in her direction with anything other than total respect, and I _will_ break every single one of your ribs. Understood?”

Nicholas stared up at him and for the first time since he’d met the insufferable prat, Flynn got to see real fear in the man’s eyes.

Wyatt burst back in, Mason with him. “It’s Nicholas’s fault,” Wyatt said hurriedly, even though he hadn’t even been there to see what had happened.

“Totally,” Noah added from up in the booth.

Flynn realized what this looked like: he was standing over a helpless man with a broken nose and snarling at him. He knew he was the kind of guy who looked like trouble and he’d taken care to hold in his temper, to work against that kind of type casting both in acting and in life.

He braced himself for the interrogation, but Mason just walked up to them and folded his arms. “Lucy. Are you okay?”

Flynn turned to look at her. Lucy’s hands were shaking slightly, a sure sign she was close to a breakdown.

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

Lucy visibly swallowed. “Nicholas and I got into an argument about Fantine. Nicholas called me a… a name, and Flynn defended me.”

Mason looked at her for a long moment, then yelled up to the booth. “Noah?”

“Yeah?”

“You know all of Thenardier’s stuff?”

“Mason I’m the stage manager, I know everybody’s stuff.”

“Great. Go to costuming, tell them to get you fitted, you’re Thenardier. Nicholas, in my office.”

Nicholas spluttered and Mason held up a hand. “You were on thin ice as it is and I’ve taught Lucy for four years. I know how to read between the lines of what she’s saying. Sometimes the world rewards assholes but I don’t. Now get in my office before I petition Denise for a suspension.”

Nicholas staggered to his feet, glaring at all of them, his nose still dripping blood as he stormed off.

Mason’s shoulders slumped. “Flynn… get that hand seen to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The fact that it’s taken you four years to punch the man is impressive. Just—don’t make it a known fact.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Noah is replacing Nicholas,” Mason announced to the room at large

“Why?” Emma asked, walking in. “I mean, it’s great, but why?”

Mason scrubbed his face. “Wyatt, go get Denise for me, would you?”

Wyatt nodded, shooting Flynn a worried look before hurrying out.

Flynn turned around to ask Lucy if she was okay but—

Lucy was gone.

 

* * *

 

Lucy burst into the green room and started crying so hard she was choking. Everybody’d had to see that, everyone had to watch her lose her temper and get called a slut and then Flynn had punched him and he was going to get in trouble and it was all her fault and—

The moment Mason had started yelling at Noah, she’d run.

Breathe, just breathe. In and out, in and out.

_Of course you’re defending her. Since you’re such a slut you have to throw yourself at two men instead of just one._

Everybody knew. Everyone knew how she felt and Flynn and Wyatt probably knew and were embarrassed and hoping it would just… blow over and _fuck_ everyone had heard—

“Hey, hey, Lucy…”

Flynn was pulling her into his chest and it all spilled out of her and she started crying. Fuck, what must he think of her? What must everyone think?

“Don’t listen to anything that comes out of that asshole’s mouth.” Flynn’s accent was thicker than normal, a sign he was feeling a strong emotion.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Fuck, she wished that Nicholas hadn’t said anything. Flynn punching him had been hot as fuck and she hadn’t even been able to appreciate it.

Flynn stroked her hair. “You don’t have anything to apologize for, _cher_. And I’m sorry.”

Lucy pulled back, wiping at her eyes. “For punching him? Flynn that was—that was amazing. Seriously.” It was sexy as hell, too. If they’d been dating she would’ve jumped him in a hot second.

“No, I…” Flynn looked stricken. “It’s my fault he said that, he saw the way I behaved towards you and assumed—”

“The way you behaved…?” What?

Flynn stared at her. “Lucy you. You can’t tell me you don’t know.”

Lucy belatedly realized that she was literally in Flynn’s arms, he’d just punched her cousin for her, and he was looking at her like she’d hung every star in the sky.

“Flynn!” It was Rufus. “Lucy! We have to start, Mason says places, he wants us to try and get through this twice for Noah’s sake.” Like Rufus hadn't been giggling with Jiya on his lap ever since the two of them had derailed rehearsal last night by making out in front of poor Karl when Rufus was supposed to be leading the  _Amis_.

“He swapped out Thenardier on the final dress,” Flynn muttered. “God help us all.”

Lucy’s skin felt too small. “We should, um, we should go.”

Flynn nodded absently. “Right.”

He exited the room, his hands clenched into fists.

Needless to say, Lucy couldn’t concentrate through her entire time on stage. She was on autopilot, and Mason clearly knew it, but hey, wasn’t final dress supposed to be awful so that opening night would be great?

Mason was giving her the benefit of the doubt, anyway. Lucy hated how she could feel everyone’s eyes on her. God knew what the rumor mill had turned the story into now.

A suspicion was starting up in her brain—a suspicion that she’d been incredibly stupid for three years.

The moment Flynn exited the stage and ‘Castle on a Cloud’ started, Lucy grabbed him and dragged him into the dressing room.

Flynn looked startled and a little afraid, like she might slap him.

“One question,” Lucy said. “And if it’s offensive you can punish me for it later. Are you still in love with Lorena?”

Flynn looked even more startled. Then he grew serious, his eyes dark and boring into hers. “No.”

Lucy launched herself at him and kissed him.

Flynn stumbled back a little but then his hands caught her around the waist and he kissed her back like he was determined to get drunk on her. Lucy moaned into his mouth and Flynn licked his way inside hers, his hands sliding over her, hauling her up against him.

“Want you,” she murmured, digging her nails into his shoulders. “Fuck, Flynn I want—”

She was kissing him and couldn’t stop, she couldn’t stop—she wouldn’t stop, not even for the damn scene change—thank God she wasn’t needed for the rest of the play—

“Lucy, I have—”

“You’re not on for another ten minutes, Flynn, please, _please_.”

Flynn pulled back and she thought for a moment that he would say no, but then he was lifting her up and laying her down on the big corner couch (the hookup couch, her brain supplied).

“Stay quiet,” he warned her, and then he was kissing her again and Lucy had absolutely no problem complying so long as his tongue was in her mouth.

Then his hand was sliding up her thigh, underneath her dress. Lucy whimpered into his mouth.

“Tell me if you want me to stop, Lucy, you have to tell me—” Flynn whispered into her mouth.

“Don’t you dare stop,” she hissed back.

Flynn groaned and pushed his hand the rest of the way up, sliding his fingers over her damp underwear. “Oh _fuck_ , you’re wet.”

“It’s been over three years, Garcia, what did you expect?”

Flynn kissed her harder, getting his fingers underneath everything, to where she was slick and yearning. He didn’t waste a moment. She suspected that Flynn was normally the type to tease but right now he was going in for the kill, touching her like he’d long planned and calculated how to make her fall apart.

Lucy clawed at his shoulders, arching as his fingers slid into her. She wanted more, she wanted all of him, she wanted to stay here for hours until she’d taken all from him that she could. It was like she’d been starving and was finally getting a taste of food and she wanted, she _wanted_.

“Yes,” she whispered against his mouth, over and over again. “Yes, yes, yes—”

“Anything you want,” Flynn promised. “Anything, anything.”

He didn’t stop kissing her the whole time, rubbing her clit, setting the pace hard and fast, until she was practically screaming into his mouth. Oh God, she wanted—she was being shoved off the goddamn cliff and she—she couldn’t—

She bit down hard on Flynn’s lip, earning a grunt of surprise, and shuddered violently. Oh fuck, it was a good thing she wasn’t on stage until the finale because she couldn’t fucking move.

“Jesus,” Flynn said hoarsely. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

Lucy pulled back so that she could look him in the eye. “You know I… it’s you and Wyatt, for me. You know that, right?”

Flynn nodded. “I know.”

He reached up and cupped her face, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone. “It’s you and Wyatt for me, too.”

Lucy sagged in relief and kissed him. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love, I love, I love you.”

Flynn held her tight, tight, so tight she thought he might never let go and she didn’t want him to. “ _Uvijek sam te volio_.”

Lucy didn’t speak Croatian, but she thought she understood all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation: I have always loved you.
> 
> ...no that wasn't a RENT reference. Okay maybe it was. STOP JUDGING ME.


	10. Chapter 10

****Flynn’s head was spinning through the rest of Act One. He—Lucy—she’d begged him, she’d kissed him, he’d kissed her, he’d had her in his arms, he’d gotten to feel her slick and desperate, she’d wanted that, she said she loved him—

“Stop whistling,” Emma hissed. “That’s the wrong show.”

Flynn paused, realizing he’d been whistling ‘She Loves Me’.

Ah, so apparently the sappiness started right away, good to know.

He didn’t see her all through the rest of the act, but the moment intermission started he booked it for the men’s dressing room so that he could change and find her.

Lucy, he should have remembered, was craftier than people gave her credit for.

When he walked into the dressing room Lucy was sitting in front of his mirror, perched on the counter, already dressed for her appearance in the finale. He crossed the room and grabbed her, pulling her to him and kissing her.

He didn’t ever want to stop.

“C’mere,” Lucy whispered, getting off the counter and pulling him into the shoe closet, which for some reason connected to the men’s dressing room as well as the hallway, and plunged them into darkness.

But even in darkness, it was easy to tell when someone dropped to their knees and started undoing his pants.

“Lucy—”

“Shh. My turn.”

Her tongue slid slowly up his cock, exploring, testing, tasting. Flynn’s head fell back against the door with a dull _thunk_. The others would be in the dressing room now, also getting changed, and he had to be quiet, he had to be—

Lucy worked her tongue underneath the foreskin and Flynn had to stuff his hand into his mouth. Oh _fuck_.

“This is fun,” Lucy mused, sounding like she’d discovered a shiny new toy. Then she started to work the foreskin down and suck at the head and fuck fuck Jesus fucking—

“Lucy,” he whispered. “Lucy you—”

She just hummed, taking more of him into her mouth, getting sloppy on purpose so that his cock was slick with spit. It had been way too long since he’d had this and he was on a fucking hair trigger and she needed to _know_ that god _damn_ …

Lucy had a proper rhythm now and that rhythm was: go as fast and tight as possible.

Flynn was going to die, and he wasn’t going to regret a second.

“I’m going—fuck, Lucy, you—I can’t—” She was hot and tight and her tongue holy shit he was so close he had to warn her—

Lucy put her hands on his hips and used what must have been all of her body weight to pin him back against the door, took him down until he hit the back of her throat (oh God) and swallowed.

Flynn bit down so hard on his hand he drew blood.

He heard the sound of Lucy wiping off her mouth and then there was cloth around his cock, cleaning him up, and then Lucy was kissing him as she tucked him back into his pants and Flynn wasn’t sure if he could move because everything from the knees down had gone numb.

“Been wanting to do that since I heard you sing ‘On the Willows’,” Lucy whispered into his mouth.

“That was in our first class together. That was—the second week of freshman semester.”

He couldn’t see her grin, but he could feel it, and it was wicked. “Precisely.”

God, he’d been an idiot. He wrapped his arms around her and felt Lucy lay her head on his chest. He tucked his nose into hair and breathed her in, the way he’d wanted to for so long. “I love you.”

He fet her tighten her grip on him. “I love you.” She sighed. “We’re going to have to find a way to corner Wyatt.”

Wyatt. Right. Wyatt who was in love with Lucy. Not with him. “Ah…”

“Tell Noah to hold, I’ll just get a replacement pair—”

The door opened and Flynn fell backwards, Lucy on top of him, the two of them spilling out of the closet and falling right in front of Wyatt’s feet.

Wyatt stared at them. They stared at him.

“—there’s a coming out joke in here somewhere,” Lucy commented.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt couldn’t breathe.

There was little doubt what Flynn and Lucy had been doing in the closet. Flynn’s face was flushed and his pants were undone, and Lucy’s lips were red and swollen and abused. Also Flynn’s hand now had a bite mark on it.

He’d always known it would happen eventually. He was just surprised that it had taken them this long. They were in love, they’d always been in love, he was the stupid one who’d fallen for both of them—

“Sorry,” he forced out. “My boots ripped.”

He blindly grabbed another pair and stuffed them on. “Act Two is starting, I’ll just—um—let you guys—”

Lucy scrambled to her feet. “Wyatt—”

“No, it’s fine, sorry.” He fumbled, found the door handle, and slipped out.

He did a pretty good job of avoiding Lucy and Flynn for the rest of dress rehearsal. He texted Rufus to ask him for help getting into the Lifeboat Club, and then while Flynn was getting his notes from Mason and Lucy was taking off her mic he slipped away.

They’d look for him in his hiding place on set or in his dorm room. They’d never think to look for him alone in the Lifeboat Club, and even if they did, Lucy didn’t have the arm strength to lift the door to get in even with Flynn boosting her up—it was why Flynn always lifted Wyatt to get the door, then Lucy to climb up.

It took a bit of wrangling to get him up there. Rufus found a stepstool, then after a couple tries he boosted Wyatt up there, then Wyatt was able to hoist himself up.

“Thanks, man,” he called back down. “You won’t tell anyone I’m up here?”

“I already told Jess.”

That was fine, Wyatt supposed. “Okay, but nobody else.”

Jess found him about an hour later, curled up on a beanbag with one of the throw blankets dragged over him. “Oh, puppy,” she said, her old nickname for him when they’d been in high school.

She pulled him into her lap and it was only then that Wyatt let himself cry.

 

* * *

 

It was opening night. It was opening night!

Amy wanted to sprint through campus screaming it. _It’s opening night!_

She felt like the only one whose excitement overrode her nerves, but then, she was just in the chorus. She didn’t have a big solo she had to worry about messing up.

Plus she was dating Jess—smart, gorgeous, dexterous, flexible, good with her fingers… good at dirty talk… good at… a lot… hhnnngghhh…

It was possible she was getting distracted.

Anyway, she had her wonderful new girlfriend who called Amy things like ‘adorable’ and ‘perfect’ and cuddled her and watched movies with her and found ingenious new ways to reward Amy for getting her homework done and gave her hugs from behind and rested her chin on Amy’s shoulder and pulled her hair and… and…

Amy got up and walked over to sit in Jess’s lap. “I suspect you want something,” Jess said.

Amy squirmed. “Uh-huh.”

Jess glanced at the clock. “We’ve got forty-five minutes until call time,” she observed, her hand sliding up Amy’s leg.

Amy glanced around them. “We are in the Lifeboat Club.” Jess and Wyatt had camped out there last night while Jess ‘hugged Wyatt through a crisis’ (Jess’s words) and so Amy had just met her there while Wyatt went to try and drown himself in the shower (Wyatt’s words, and hopefully he’d been sarcastic).

Jess looked around. “And?”

“No sex in the Lifeboat Club.”

Jess got her hands beneath Amy’s underwear, stroking slowly. “So… that’s a no to getting fucked like a pretty little slut?”

“…fuck the rules.”

“That’s what I thought.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt took a long shower, drank a lot of coffee, did some breathing exercises that Kate had taught him, and figured he was as prepared as he would ever be for opening night.

Then Flynn tried to talk to him after vocal warmup.

“Wyatt.”

“Hey.” Wyatt tried to keep his voice neutral. “I haven’t told anyone about you and Lucy. I figured you’d want to keep it private.”

“What?” Flynn looked surprised. “Oh, thanks.”

Right, Flynn thought Wyatt was enough of a jerk to go around telling everyone that Lucy had blown Flynn in the shoe closet. Good to know. “Break a leg,” he said out loud.

“Wyatt, wait.” Flynn grabbed him by the shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see that, that wasn’t what Lucy and I were planning.”

“Yeah, that was pretty easy to figure out,” Wyatt replied, unable to keep all of the hurt out of his voice. Flynn had to know how he felt about Lucy, why couldn’t they just ignore the whole thing and leave him alone?

“I—no, I meant—” Flynn sighed. “Do you have any idea how hard you are to talk to sometimes? You drive me up the wall.”

“Likewise.” Wyatt shrugged Flynn’s hand off and started to walk away. “Look, could you just… I need some space, okay? Pre-show, um, warmup and all that.”

“I know your pre-show warmup, Wyatt, you’ve never needed to be left alone before.”

“Well I want to be left alone now.”

“Do you have to make everything so difficult?” Flynn demanded.

“I’m not making anything difficult,” Wyatt snapped. “You’re making it difficult by not leaving me alone, why won’t you ever just leave me the fuck alone, okay? Just—just stop—” He waved his hand in front of Flynn’s body. “—that.”

“Stop existing?” Flynn said dryly.

“Sure, why not, maybe that’ll help.”

“Is this because you’re envious?” Flynn asked. “Are you envious because you’re in love with Lucy?”

Oh, great, it was just humiliate Wyatt night. “Maybe I’m just worried about her taste in men.”

That—that was a mistake, he knew it as soon as he said it. Flynn’s eyebrows shot up. “Glad to know that’s what you think.”

“Wait.” That wasn’t— “Flynn I’m—that’s not what I—”

“Better go do your pre-show warmup.” Flynn’s voice was like ice.

Wyatt didn’t know what to do or say, and so he just turned and stormed out of the dressing room.

 

* * *

 

Amy knew, objectively, that she’d had sex about an hour ago, before vocal warm up.

But she didn’t care about objectively, she cared about Jess’s fingers knuckle deep in her from behind as they fucked on the couch in the green room.

Damn, this thing was called the hookup couch for a reason, it was huge and super comfy.

Jess had her hand over Amy’s mouth, since Amy couldn’t be quiet for the life of her, and Amy could still taste Jess on her tongue from ten minutes ago and she was about to come so hard she was gonna see stars.

“Do you want to come?” Jess asked, her hand still tight over Amy’s mouth to keep her quiet as her fingers slid in and out of her, slick sliding down her wrist. “Hmm?”

Amy whimpered. Yes, please, so badly.

“Think you’ve been a good enough girl for me?”

Amy nodded, pushing into Jess’s fingers, so close, so very close… and then Jess’s hand stopped.

“I’m not sure,” Jess mused. “You did come once already today, you sure that isn’t enough?”

She moaned into Jess’s hand, shaking with the need to come.

“Why do you need to come again, baby?” Jess whispered, her mouth right at Amy’s ear. She moved her hand away from Amy’s mouth so that Amy could answer.

“…because I’m a slut?” Amy whispered.

“Say it again.”

“I’m—I’m a slut, I need to come again because I’m a slut.”

“Very good,” Jess praised, covering Amy’s mouth again. “Lucky you’re so good for me.”

Her fingers started moving again and Amy wailed, her hips shaking wildly and her legs seizing up, Jess whispering in her ear all the while, and she came all over the green room couch.

Jess collapsed next to her, petting her hair. “You’re so pretty like that.”

Amy cuddled into her, feeling all liquid warm and content. “I like that you covered my mouth, I like that bit of restraint.”

“Well I had to, baby, this wall is the one for the women’s dressing room.”

Amy stilled.

The dressing room where Lucy, Miss ‘Don’t Fuck My Sister’ was getting ready.

Ohhhhhhh no. No, Lucy, was not going to think she’d gotten away with dictating who Amy could and couldn’t sleep with.

Amy started banging on the wall with her fist. “Oh, yes!” she cried out, sounding like she was in the middle of an orgasm. “Oh, yes!”

“What are you doing?” Jess hissed.

“Spank me harder, Jess, please!” Amy shouted.

“Ohhhh no,” Jess groaned.

“Stop me from having sex, will she?” Amy hissed at her. She then went back to yelling. “Pull my hair, fuck me so hard, yes, yes, fuck yes!”

“I’m going to die,” Jess whispered. “I’m going to be murdered. They’ll never find my body.”

Amy ignored her in favor of making some _very_ ecstatic cries of pleasure. “This dildo sure was a great idea! Fuck me like you mean it!”

“I’ll be chopped up into little pieces,” Jess muttered.

The green room door banged open and Lucy, her hair half done, glared at them. “Really, Amy!?”

“You told them they couldn’t have sex with me! My body, my choice!”

“I was trying—”

“ _My body, my choice_!”

“I’ll just die here, if nobody minds,” Jess said.

“Fine! Okay! It was stupid! Pull your goddamn skirt down, I don’t need to see that!”

“Oddly enough,” Rufus said, pausing as he walked by, “this is the fifth time a post-coital couple has had an argument with someone else in this green room.”

“I believe in continuing traditions,” Amy told him.

“Death can take me whenever it feels like it,” Jess declared.

And of course that was when Karl, newly promoted to Stage Manager, called five minutes to curtain.

 

* * *

 

If Flynn’s anger hadn’t already been crystal clear, the way he was acting as Valjean on stage was definitely getting the meaning across.

He had never played Valjean was such anger at Javert before, always taking the route of ‘well Valjean is okay to live and let live with Javert, Javert’s the one who can’t let go’, but tonight that was all reversed, Flynn playing Valjean with a kind of righteous anger that radiated out of him and made Wyatt want to choke.

They were at ‘The Confrontation’, the song they’d practiced the most, the one Wyatt knew like the back of his hand at this point, and thank God he did because he was definitely not paying attention to the lyrics.

Lucy was lying on the bed, supposedly dead but occasionally glancing at both men with an extremely worried look. Wyatt didn’t know what Flynn had told her but he wouldn’t have been surprised if after the show Lucy took him aside and gently turned down his feelings and was generally nicer about the whole thing than Wyatt deserved.

He was angry at himself, he was angry at Flynn for pushing his buttons, he was angry at himself again for letting Flynn push his buttons, he was angry at the whole situation, and mostly he just wanted to scream.

Wyatt’s stomach was churning and he wasn’t sure if he could name all that he was feeling. Part of him wanted to just cry but he couldn’t, and it wasn’t even because he was on stage—he’d almost forgotten about that, everything in him focused on Flynn. He wanted, fuck, and Lucy knew but Flynn didn’t and couldn’t and he wasn’t going to want Wyatt, he was only going to want Lucy, and it all just burned in him and he was so angry, so fucking angry at Flynn and at himself for being such an ass for three years that Flynn barely even considered him a friend—

They were circling each other, following the choreography on autopilot. Flynn was glaring at him too, and Wyatt wanted to wipe that stupid angry look off his face and knock Flynn off kilter for once the way Flynn always did to him… he wanted Flynn to be the one shocked and overwhelmed just once…

They were only inches apart now and they were reaching the crescendo and Wyatt didn’t even know how he was still singing when his eyes were blurring and it was all his fault, he’d set himself up like this, he’d been the jerk and lost all chance but he needed Flynn to know that he didn’t hate him, he’d never hated him, he wasn’t just jealous over Lucy he was actually in lo—

He honestly couldn’t say if it was him or Flynn who moved. All he knew was that they were kissing.

His ears were ringing and he couldn’t seem to uncurl his fingers from where they were clinging to Flynn’s stupid coat, and it was nothing like the slow, deep kiss he’d imagined when he’d dared to think about this. It was hunger and fire and war, teeth clashing a bit until Flynn grabbed him by the back of the head, tangling his fingers in Wyatt’s hair and yanking, changing the angle and then it was—

Wyatt’s knees buckled a little.

Fuck, fuck, he was making some kind of embarrassing noise in the back of his throat and he never wanted to stop, Jesus fuck, Flynn was kissing him like he was branding himself into Wyatt’s skin and Wyatt’s blood, down to his goddamn molecules.

Flynn pulled back, or rather yanked himself back like he had to or he wouldn’t ever, his chest heaving and eyes still closed as he caught his breath.

That was when someone wolf-whistled.

And Wyatt remembered:

_They were still in the middle of the fucking show._


	11. Chapter 11

Mason had thought that the worst part of the show was when Noah missed a cue because he was kissing Dave.

It wasn’t a huge hiccup, Emma was a psycho but she was a professional… most of the time… but it was enough to scare the rest of the cast into paying extra attention through the rest of the play.

…and then Wyatt had kissed Flynn at the end of ‘The Confrontation’ and the audience had lost its collective shit.

Karl, the only loyal person in this entire cast, silently pulled out the whiskey bottle and passed it to Mason.

 

* * *

 

Flynn knew they were in for a lecture the moment they stepped offstage and the curtain went down for intermission.

He couldn’t get rid of the taste of Wyatt’s mouth off his tongue. Coffee, Wyatt tasted strongly of coffee.

Fuck, he wanted to grab him and chase that taste until Wyatt forgot his stupid hang ups and his habit of running away and his own name.

Mason, sure enough, yanked them—literally—into the green room. Lucy tried to follow, but Mason kicked her out. “I’m sure your irresistible charms have played their part in this little fiasco, Miss Preston, but I’d like to talk to just Joe and Louis here.”

“Louis is a fuckboy,” Wyatt muttered.

“And you just made out with your costar in front of half the college,” Mason snapped. “I thought you didn’t even like the romantic angle?”

“I—it was—” Wyatt waved his hand uselessly.

“You do realize you two are going to have to do that every night now,” Mason told them. “This is going to spread like the black plague.”

“Thanks,” Flynn snapped. “Nice description.”

He didn’t mind at all the idea of kissing Wyatt every night, but Wyatt looked like someone had just told him to get in front of a firing squad.

“Look,” Mason said, rubbing his temples. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two. Or you two and Miss Hermia out there, for the record. But you need to sort it out because your romantic drama is not allowed to ruin this musical that all of your costars have busted their arses over for two months. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Flynn said automatically.

“Yes, sir,” Wyatt muttered.

“Good.” Mason put his hands on his hips, sighing. “Now, I’m going to go back into the booth, and I’m going to watch a spectacular show that goes exactly according to how we’ve rehearsed it. Right?”

“…right.”

“…right.”

Mason glared at both of them, then nodded once more and left the green room.

Flynn looked over at Wyatt, who looked like he was wondering if he could hang himself by his cravat. “Why did you do it?”

He was tempted, so tempted, to walk over and kiss Wyatt all over again right that moment. But he had to know why. Was it out of anger? A heat of the moment expression?

Or had Wyatt been feeling the same way as Flynn, all this time?

Even just considering the possibility of that made Flynn’s chest tight.

“Doesn’t matter,” Wyatt mumbled.

“It actually matters a hell of a lot.”

“I made a mistake, I’m sorry, could we please drop it?”

“Could you stop being allergic to talking about emotions for just two seconds, for the love of God?”

“Look, can we just forget it ever happened?” Wyatt asked.

“I don’t want to forget it happened!” Flynn shouted.

“Well I do!” Wyatt yelled right back. “All you do—all you do is fuck with my head and I just—I can’t fucking handle it.”

“You’re doing a fantastic job of flinging it right back,” Flynn snarled.

“Don’t worry,” Wyatt snapped. “I’m getting out of your hair. Don’t even worry about it.”

“That’s not—for fuck’s sake Wyatt—”

Wyatt turned and walked away, slamming open the green room door.

“Someday,” Flynn yelled after him, “I’m going to get you into a damn room where you can’t run away from me!”

He didn’t hear Wyatt’s muttered response:

“I don’t see you running after me.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh Lord,” Rufus groaned, collapsing onto a beanbag.

Jiya climbed onto his lap. She rather liked that she could do this now. She laid her head on his shoulder. “You good?”

“My phone’s blowing up, everyone wants to know what the hell is up with Wyatt and Flynn.”

“So nobody buys that was part of the choreography.”

“Are you kidding me? Emma made sure to tell everyone that it wasn’t and even if she hadn’t, we all know the truth, someone was bound to talk. Everybody knows Wyatt and Flynn snap at each other all the time, they want to know what was up.”

“And they’re asking Mr. Carlin,” Jiya teased. “The man who knows everything.”

“Not everything.” He looked up at her, warmth in his eyes. “I didn’t know how you felt.”

“Well.” Jiya slid her hand under his shirt, grinning. “We’ve sorted that all out now.”

“Mmm, we have.”

She really did enjoy kissing him. She shifted, straddling him properly, grinning down at him. “I think we deserve a little… post-opening night celebration.”

Rufus’s hands settled at her hips. “We’re in the Lifeboat Club.”

“And?”

“…and you know the rules.”

“Mmm.” Jiya leaned down, kissing along Rufus’s neck. “But… you made the rules…” She could feel him getting interested and rolled her hips, gasping a little. “…so you can break them… isn’t that the point of being president?”

“That is a very, very worrying point to take and I hate that I’m agreeing with you over it,” Rufus admitted.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Jiya said, taking off her shirt. “Yada, yada, yada. Strip.”

Rufus groaned in fake annoyance. “Work, work, work, that’s all I’m good for,” he said, obligingly taking off his shirt.

Then he grabbed her and flipped her, sending them rolling onto another beanbag. Jiya shrieked in surprise, grabbing at him, yelling “you asshole” into his mouth as he kissed her.

She spread her legs, trying to work their pants off. “Wait, wait, hold on, back pocket,” Rufus told her, reaching back and getting out his wallet.

“Classy.”

“I suspected I’d need to start carrying these around.”

“You know me too well.”

Rufus kissed his way down her neck, and Jiya thanked her lucky stars that she’d been too lazy to put on a bra after the show so that he could get right to mouthing at her breasts, her nails digging into his shoulders. Mason had made it clear that the role of Enjolras was supposed to be charismatic, attractive, that the audience had to believe that the _Amis_ would follow Enjolras anywhere because of his charisma.

As a result, she’d seen a lot of women—and men—going gaga over Rufus in the audience and she was happy to tell them that yes, he was as good as he looked, and no, he was not available.

They shifted and the beanbag sent them rolling, and Jiya laughed breathlessly. “Here, here, let me turn over.”

Rufus pushed back, letting her turn over, and then kissed his way up her spine, his hand sliding between her legs, his finger teasing her clit for a moment before dragging through her folds, getting her wet and aching. “Seriously though nobody can know we did this in here.”

“ _Thy’la_ , light of my life, stop worrying about the Lifeboat Club rules and fuck my brains out.”

“I date you for your sense of romance, I hope you know that.”

Oh, the other rumor she could confirm?

That bulge in his costume pants was aaaaaall real.

Jiya would be the first to admit that she liked this position because she could use her hands to brace and thrust, but she also liked it because of how it got Rufus all the way inside of her, the way he could drape himself over her back and connect them, skin on skin, every inch, warmth and weight on her reminding her that this was real, anchoring her brain—her mind that seemed to always be in the past or the future or jumping all over—to the present moment. To them.

She tilted her head, able to kiss him, gasping as he got the angle right and she saw stars, squirming back onto him and twisting her hips for more, desperate. She had three years of this to make up for, after all. She reached back, grabbing his hip. “Just—right there, yes, God—” Rufus was the patient type who paid attention to every hitch in her breath until he knew exactly how to fuck her, deep, hard strokes that had her seeing stars.

“You’re so beautiful,” he gasped out against her shoulder, so quiet she wasn’t sure if he knew he was saying it out loud. “Fuck…”

His hand moved between her legs again, rubbing at her clit and she let out an embarrassingly loud moan and came with a shudder, her eyelids fluttering. She locked her elbows to keep from faceplanting as she felt Rufus jerk a final time, exhaling shakily into her skin.

As soon as they got their breath back he pulled out of her, cleaning up as Jiya fetched their clothes. “C’mere,” she said, crooking a finger at him.

Rufus came, kissing her softly, settling between her legs, a warm weight anchoring her. He always anchored her. “You all good my love?”

“You’re a sap,” she told him.

“You call me a word that, in _Star Trek_ canon, means ‘soulmate’.”

“Touché.”

She pulled him in, nestling into him. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Then she frowned. “Babe do you hear… knocking?”

Rufus looked towards the trap door.

“Rufus?” It was Wyatt. “You up there?”

“…oh no,” Rufus groaned.

 

* * *

 

Lucy didn’t manage to get a hold of Wyatt all through Act Two, and when she asked Flynn, he just shook his head wordlessly.

Once the curtain came down, Lucy was swarmed by friends wanting to congratulate her, and Amy hugging her and screaming “You were amazing!” in her ear, and Jiya and Jess grabbing her for pictures and a group hug, and by the time she disentangled herself from everyone, Wyatt was nowhere to be seen.

“I lost track of him,” Flynn admitted, dressed in his regular clothes again. “I checked the usual places.”

“I’ll change, you check his dorm room.”

Flynn nodded, then suddenly reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her in and burying his face into her hair, his other arm wrapping around her waist as if he was using her to anchor himself.

“I think I messed it up somehow,” Flynn admitted.

“Shh, no, you didn’t. Wyatt’s—he’s scared so he’s running.” Lucy got onto her toes and kissed the corner of Flynn’s mouth. “We’ll work it out. See if you can find him.”

Flynn nodded, squeezing her tightly and then letting go.

Lucy changed quickly, her mind racing. Wyatt had been upset when he’d seen them, and she knew he had feelings for Flynn, and he’d kissed Flynn—was he in love just with Flynn and upset he was with her now?

The thought made her lungs seize up. She would find a way to accept it if Wyatt only wanted Flynn. If he only saw her as a friend. She’d find a way to… to talk it through, to share…

Lucy swallowed, bracing her hands on the makeup counter and counting to ten quietly in her head. She wouldn’t cry over this. She wouldn’t cry.

“Hey.”

Flynn pulled her into him and she sagged against him, crying into his shirt. He rubbed her back, making soothing noises. “Bastard’s lucky I’m in love with him, anyone else made you cry…”

Lucy laughed into his t-shirt. “I’m sorry. I just—it’s my fault, y’know?”

“What? How?” Flynn pulled back, his hands at her shoulders, looking completely bewildered.

“Wyatt wants you,” Lucy said. “And you’re with me, so he thinks he can’t have you.”

“He’s in love with you, Lucy,” Flynn said, like he was having to remind her that the sky was blue. “He’s always been in love with you.”

She laughed again. It sounded hollow. “No…”

“Yes,” Flynn insisted.

Lucy didn’t want to keep arguing this point. They’d find out who was right soon enough, anyway. “What happened?”

“I asked him why he kissed me, and he didn’t want to talk about it. He said that it was a mistake and he shouldn’t have done it, and that he wanted to forget about it. I said I didn’t want to forget it, and then he said something about he wanted me to stop existing and stormed out.”

That was… pretty messy, honestly.

“I should have run after him,” Flynn admitted.

“Are you sure that’s what he said?” Lucy asked. “That it was a mistake?”

“Those were his exact words.” Flynn rubbed his eyes. “He’s just—it was a heat of the moment thing and he doesn’t actually want to date me.”

Lucy curled up into his side. “Not true. He told me he has feelings for you.”

“What?”

“You’re the reason he figured out he was bi, Flynn. He made me promise not to tell anyone. I thought… I thought after he kissed you that it would all be figured out.”

Flynn pulled out his phone. Lucy frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Wyatt disappears after the show. He doesn’t go to his room and he’s not hiding in the set. There’s only one person who could know where he was going.”

The person who knew everything about everyone in the theatre department. “Rufus.”

“We’re going after him.” Flynn finished texting Rufus and set his phone down. “And we’re not leaving him alone until we sort this out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to write pure Riya smut and Jiya got feels all up in it how dare.
> 
> Also, timeline-wise, the Riya smut takes place at the same time as the Lucy/Flynn dressing room scene at the end.


	12. Chapter 12

Noah felt Dave groan, seeing as he was currently resting his head on Dave’s chest. “What?”

“Everyone’s yelling about Wyatt and Flynn’s kiss,” Dave said. “They want to know where he is since apparently Rufus is busy and isn’t answering texts.”

“You’re the one who said Wyatt was one of your best friends.”

“I didn’t think he’d then make out with his supposed mortal enemy on stage in front of the entire school.”

Noah reached up, plucking the phone from Dave’s hand and setting it on the nightstand. “The gossip will still be there in the morning. Sleep.”

Dave dropped his hand down onto Noah’s back, trailing his fingers lightly up and down. “Or we could do things besides sleeping.”

Noah cracked an eye open and looked up at his boyfriend. “We left the condoms in the Lifeboat Club, remember?”

“Rufus is gonna kill us if he finds out we broke rule number six,” Dave mused. Then he perked up. “We could do stuff that doesn’t need condoms.”

Noah pretended to consider this. “Hmmm… I don’t know… do I really need a blowjob from you…?”

Dave smacked him playfully and Noah laughed. He wasn’t going to say that his heartbreak over Lucy had been fun, but if it had been what led him to this, jokingly wrestling with the boyfriend who would help him with his math homework and cuddle him without telling a soul that Noah got scared during horror films and would make terrible puns to see Noah laugh and always saw the bright side of things… then he’d say it had been worth it.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt knew immediately that he’d interrupted something when a very cranky-looking Rufus opened the trap door to the Lifeboat Club while shirtless.

“You’re lucky we’re post-coital instead of pre-coital,” Jiya said from somewhere behind Rufus.

“Lift me up?” Wyatt asked.

Rufus sighed and sent down the ladder.

“I take it you’re hiding out here for the night again,” Rufus said dryly.

“Don’t tell anyone?” Wyatt asked. He didn’t want to see anybody, not even Jess. He just wanted to stew in self-pity and raid the mini fridge for ice cream bars and beer and eat his feelings.

“Sure thing.” Rufus looked over at Jiya and jerked his head. Jiya sighed, patting Wyatt sympathetically on the shoulder as she moved past him to exit down the ladder.

Wyatt curled up on a beanbag chair after closing the door behind them.

Fuck, he’d ruined everything.

 

* * *

 

 _He’s in the Lifeboat Club_.

Lucy read the text from Rufus over Flynn’s shoulder. “Then let’s go.”

Flynn pocketed his phone and offered his hand for Lucy to take, interlocking her fingers. “Can you lift the trap door?”

“I’ll find a way.” Lucy would lift whatever the hell it took if a stupid trap door was the only thing standing between her and finally getting both the men she’d been in love with for three years.

They kept quiet as they walked up to the entrance, not wanting to alert anyone who might be hanging around as to what they were doing, and then Flynn lifted Lucy up onto his shoulders.

“Lift with your legs,” he reminded her.

Lucy pushed with all of her might on the trap door. Thank God for building sets for three and a half years, it meant she was a lot stronger than she looked. It took some effort, but she was able to give a final push and send the trap door flying open.

There was a startled yelp that definitely belonged to one Wyatt Logan.

Lucy sighed, then hoisted herself up when Flynn lifted her, grabbing the ladder and sending it down after him. Flynn climbed up and they both turned to see Wyatt staring at them from a beanbag, his blue eyes wide.

“What are you doing here?” Wyatt asked. He looked terrified of the answer.

Flynn rolled his eyes. “Running after you, porcupine,” he said, and then he hauled Wyatt in by the shoulders and kissed him.

Wyatt went stiff for a second, clearly not expecting that, but then he practically melted. It didn’t look at all to Lucy like the angry, biting kiss she’d seen on stage after ‘The Confrontation’. This looked deep, soft, exploring.

Flynn pulled back and Wyatt looked concussed.

Lucy braced herself. _It’s okay if he doesn’t want you, it’s okay if he doesn’t want you._ “To clarify… it’s both of us, running after you,” she said.

Wyatt looked over at her, and the expression on his face made her breath catch. “But you…” He glanced at Flynn.

She had to say it, say it before she lost her nerve or burst into tears or both. “I love both of you. I always have.”

Wyatt looked startled, then like he might cry, then she couldn’t see what he looked like at all because he was wrapping his arms around her and burying his face into her hair and holding her, shaking. Lucy clung back to him because he hadn’t said anything but that didn’t feel like a rejection to her.

“I’m so in love with you it hurts, Luce,” Wyatt whispered into her hair. “Fuck, I can’t even—it was so unfair to Jess and I was such an ass about it but God I loved you since goddamn _Wicked_ auditions—”

Lucy pulled back and kissed him, cutting him off.

Kissing Wyatt wasn’t like kissing Flynn. Flynn was fire, an inferno she wanted to lose herself in, a storm that raged and brought out the wild inside of her. Wyatt was like sinking into a bed, like drowning, until something in her settled.

She wanted both for the rest of her life.

Lucy pulled away, her hands framing his face, smiling at the altogether concussed look Wyatt was sporting. “It was when I sang ‘As Long As You’re Mine’, wasn’t it?” she teased.

She’d been on stage in nothing but her underwear for that scene.

Wyatt went bright pink. “Um—no, it was—before that—”

Flynn sidled up behind Lucy, kissing the side of her neck. “She’s teasing you, Logan, get with the program.”

Wyatt grabbed Flynn’s shirt and yanked him in, kissing him. “That ‘getting with the program’ enough for you?”

Flynn growled and then literally tackled Wyatt into the beanbag chairs, kissing the living daylights out of him. Oh hell yes. Lucy could watch this for ages. Wyatt got his hands up underneath Flynn’s shirt, spreading his legs so that Flynn was cradled between them and could roll his hips at a better angle, and Lucy could feel her breathing getting shallow, her skin heating up, as she watched.

Wyatt ended up yanking Flynn’s shirt up over his head, which Flynn allowed before he worked his hand into Wyatt’s pants. Lucy undid her own pants, swallowing hard, desperately wanting them to touch her but also not wanting them to stop touching each other so she could keep watching.

So many options… so many decisions…

Wyatt looked like he was already desperately close to orgasm, his mouth open and eyes glazed as Flynn touched him. Well then, she’d start with him.

Lucy shoved lightly at Flynn’s shoulder, encouraging him to move to the side. Flynn honest to God pouted at her like she’d taken away his favorite toy.

“You had your turn,” Lucy replied. “You’ve had all the turns.”

“I really don’t mind him having more turns,” Wyatt added, sounding dazed.

“He can have more turns later,” Lucy informed him, and then she got Wyatt’s pants down properly and took him into her mouth.

She really didn’t know what it was in her brain that made her go, _you gotta put your mouth on that_ , but she wasn’t protesting in the slightest when it made Wyatt let out a choked whine and scramble for purchase on the beanbag.

Flynn made a sound like a wounded animal. “Is it bad that I’m tempted to film this?” he admitted hoarsely.

Lucy was pretty sure Wyatt flipped Flynn off, but she just pinned Wyatt by the hips and concentrated on getting him down as far as she could. Wyatt groaned helplessly, shaking.

Flynn leaned in, petting her hair and whispering in her ear, “you gonna swallow him like you did me?”

Lucy managed to nod, fluttering her tongue in a way that made Wyatt moan, and then felt Flynn pull away and crawl up to Wyatt, whispering in his ear. She could just barely make out the words.

“Go ahead,” Flynn was whispering. “She wants you to come in her mouth, it’s okay, just let go.”

“Fuck,” Wyatt spat out, and then she heard the sound of Flynn kissing him again, messy and probably hot as fuck, and she hummed around Wyatt’s cock at the mental image.

Wyatt moaned and came, jerking in her mouth, and Lucy had to stop herself from laughing through it and making even more of a mess. Flynn was petting Wyatt and murmuring to him something about ‘next time’ and she had little doubt that Flynn planned on fucking Wyatt senseless when they all weren’t so impatient.

Lucy pulled away, wiping at her mouth. Wyatt grabbed her and yanked her up to him, kissing her. “Holy shit,” he gasped out, his hands roaming all over her, tugging at her clothes, wedging his thigh between her legs so that she could ride it and relieve some of the unbearable pressure. She was smearing her slick all over his leg but he didn’t seem to mind at all, kissing her and guiding her hips until she was mindlessly grinding down, panting, sparks flying all through her.

Flynn was rummaging around, cursing, probably checking his wallet for a condom or something. Then she heard him make a surprised noise and she pulled back, turning to look at him.

“Um, Lucy?” Flynn held up a box of condoms. “Did you plant these here?”

“No?” She frowned, taking the box. Wait a minute…

“Rufus?” Wyatt suggested.

“No,” Lucy said slowly. “This is the brand of condom that Noah uses.”

…well then.

Wyatt started laughing. “Go Bam Bam.”

Lucy grabbed a condom and waved it at Flynn. “C’mere, handsome.” She wanted him to fuck her until she couldn’t walk.

Flynn nearly tripped over his own feet, and Lucy needed Wyatt’s help to finish getting Flynn undressed. They were all kissing each other, messy and uncoordinated, Wyatt at her throat, Flynn at her mouth, and then switching it all up again.

“Next time,” Wyatt noted as the beanbag chair slid and they all nearly tumbled to the floor, “we’re doing this in a bed.”

Lucy sprawled across his lap and yanked at Flynn until he was between her legs. “I don’t care if it’s the floor of the theatre just fuck me.”

“Mmm, impatient,” Flynn replied, but he hitched her leg up so that he could bend down and lick at her.

Lucy moaned and felt Wyatt tugging on her hair, turning her so that he could kiss her, his hand sliding over to tweak her nipple. Lucy gasped, squirming, pushing into both of them, their hands and mouths everywhere. She felt drunk, almost, and arched up desperately into Flynn’s mouth. He’d told her he hadn’t had sex since Lorena, how the _fuck—_

“Like riding a bike,” Flynn told her, smirking, and Lucy flipped him off as she realized she’d said that last bit out loud.

“Get inside me,” she ordered.

“Well, when you say it so nicely…”

Lucy had a good retort, she did, but then Flynn was sliding into her and she completely forgot what she was going to say. Wyatt kept kissing her as she adjusted to Flynn, shaking. It had been a whole summer since she’d had sex with Noah and her body needed a moment to get used to this again, but once it did…

“Move,” she whispered, not ordering and yet ordering at the same time, her voice softer than she’d planned.

Flynn pulled halfway out and then slid back in, slow, careful, until Lucy dug her heel into his back and he started to speed up. Wyatt was kissing both of them, his hands running over Flynn’s back and arm and Lucy’s chest and tangling in their hair as she started to lose all sense of vision, everything blurring except for the way she felt as Flynn fucked her.

She felt a hand, fingers, Wyatt’s fingers, moving over her clit, rubbing in hot fast little circles and she cried out, arching, feeling Flynn shudder and someone—Flynn or Wyatt—biting her shoulder, and then she went boneless.

Flynn fell to the side, sort of on Wyatt, sort of on her, the three of them a tangle of limbs.

“Holy shit,” Wyatt said weakly.

Lucy pointed vaguely in his general direction. “You’re next.”

Flynn halfheartedly glared at her. “Hold on. I called dibs.”

“I didn’t hear it so it doesn’t count.”

“I feel objectified,” Wyatt said.

“Hush,” Flynn and Lucy said at once.

Lucy chuckled, turning so that she could kiss Wyatt, then Flynn, snuggling down in between them. “Guess what?”

“Mmm, what?” Flynn murmured, wrapping an arm around Wyatt to drag him and Lucy closer.

“Doesn’t matter who does what next because we have all the time in the world to do everything.”

She felt Wyatt bury his face into her hair to try and hide his smile, and saw Flynn’s sleepy eyes shining at her. “Yeah,” Flynn agreed. “Yeah we do.”

 

* * *

 

Jiya paused the game of Mario Kart. “So we agree they’re totally banging in there.”

“Oh yeah,” Rufus said, nodding. “They totally are. And I’m making them buy everyone a round of beer for it.” He started the game up again.

“Perfect— _did you just fucking blue shell me_!?”


	13. Chapter 13

Lucy stirred to consciousness slowly.

She was warm, curled up on top of Wyatt and Flynn. The beanbags meant that the two boys sort of sagged towards one another, almost like if they were in a hammock, and Lucy was now flopped on top of both of them.

Wyatt’s arm was around her waist while a hand—Flynn’s, it was too big to be Wyatt’s—carded softly through her hair.

It took her a moment to realize what had woken her up.

“… _she has her eyes, the girl has Lily’s hazel eyes…_ ”

Lucy kept her face burrowed into Flynn’s chest so that they wouldn’t know she was awake, but she swore she could feel her heart swelling fit to burst.

Wyatt and Flynn had done duets before, but this was different. Lucy dared to glance up and saw that Wyatt was staring absently up at the ceiling, struggling not to smile, while Flynn was staring at his fingers entwined with Wyatt’s on Wyatt’s chest. They were both singing softly, possibly not to wake her, but also possibly because that just seemed to fit the mood, this strange cocoon they’d made for themselves.

They were technically the same voice type but Lucy had never heard two people with such different voices, Flynn’s deep and rolling, Wyatt’s able to turn on a dime from crooning to soaring. She closed her eyes again, soaking it all up.

_Would God have let her stay! Would God have let her stay!_

_She has her eyes, she has her eyes._

_She has Lily’s hazel eyes. My Lily’s hazel eyes._

_Those eyes that first saw me,_

_Those eyes that first I loved so! Happy long ago._

_How can I now forget, that once I dared to be in love…_

_To be alive and whole…_

_In Lily’s eyes…_

Lucy suddenly felt like she was going to cry. She didn’t want to leave this space, this moment, not ever.

“ _In Lucy’s eyes…_ ” Wyatt sang quietly. She heard Flynn chuckle. Lucy cracked an eye open again and saw Flynn press a kiss to Wyatt’s jaw, making Wyatt turn and look at him, blushing and grinning wide.

She wanted this to last forever.

Flynn ran his hand through her hair and she snuggled closer. He looked down, seeing that she was awake. The soft smile that lit up his face made everything they’d been through worth it.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

Lucy pushed herself up and kissed him, then turned and kissed Wyatt, before settling back down between them with her head on Flynn’s chest, petting Wyatt’s face with her fingertips. “What time is it?”

“Like four a.m. or something,” Wyatt answered, keeping his voice quiet even though nobody could hear them.

“Then what do you say we do a walk of shame back to my room?” Lucy asked. “I don’t have a morning class.”

“I do,” Flynn observed. “But if you offer I’m not saying no.”

“Somebody lift me up,” Wyatt mumbled, his face buried in Flynn’s shoulder.

They dragged themselves up and stumbled through campus back to Lucy’s room, acting half-drunk, Flynn kissing Wyatt against trees and Wyatt tickling Lucy until she shrieked, Flynn hoisting her up over his shoulder and running with her while she clung to him and demanded to be put down.

Lucy’s bed wasn’t that big—none of the dorm beds were—but Wyatt wedged himself on his side with his back to the wall and Flynn lay on his back and Lucy sprawled on top of him and it worked out that way. Her eyes slid closed the moment she laid her head down on Flynn’s chest but she could hear the boys whispering back and forth for a while, talking about nonsense, Wyatt’s arm a warm weight around her waist and Flynn’s hand in her hair.

 

* * *

 

“Let me get this straight,” Amy said as they dressed for the performance. “You three got together but you don’t want me to tell anyone.”

“Exactly. There’s been enough drama already, and we kind of want to keep it just for ourselves for a bit.”

Amy snorted, pausing as Jess passed by, kissing Amy on the cheek before breezing out to head to the other side of the stage. “Well good luck with that. You know half the audience is here because they heard about Wyatt and Flynn’s kiss, right?”

“I’m pretty sure we can keep our relationship a secret for a few more days.”

“You have hickeys all over your breasts, sis.”

“…shit.”

 

* * *

 

Noah leaned into Rufus so that Flynn and Wyatt couldn’t hear. “So, did they bang or what? Lucy’s doing that floaty thing after really good sex and I’m pretty sure that’s stubble burn Flynn’s sporting.”

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” Rufus replied.

“Rufus, man, c’mon, I got a bet with Dave.”

“If you honestly need me to tell you if they fucked or not then I don’t know how I can possibly help you, Noah, you’ve got eyes, right?”

Both boys glanced across the dressing room at Flynn and Wyatt, the former of which was buttoning up the shirt of the latter while they bent their heads together and talked in low voices. Flynn’s hands were definitely lingering longer than they had to, and the look Wyatt was giving him could best be described as ‘besotted’.

“…yeah they fucked. Where’s Dave, he owes me a shake.”

“Not sex?”

“He gives me that for free, Rufus.”

 

* * *

 

Mason relaxed as the first act progressed with nary a hiccup. Sure, his cast was probably buggering each other six ways to Sunday in the green room but they were hitting their marks, singing with clarity and on-key, and the rotating set wasn’t falling down around everyone’s ears. All in all, a success.

“I hate to admit it,” Denise said, watching it all with folded arms, “but you pulled it off.”

“Don’t I always?”

Denise sighed. “I suppose so.”

“…does this mean…”

“We are not doing _Candide_ , Mason, stop asking.”

“I was going to ask if we could do _A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum_.”

“Don’t make me force you to do _A Chorus Line_.”

 

* * *

 

“Holy shit,” Wyatt managed to push into Flynn’s mouth as Flynn shoved him back against the side of the barricade that the audience couldn’t see. “Fucking—”

Flynn snarled a little as he tried to get to Wyatt’s skin underneath the stupid costume. “Kisses are a lot better when the person you’re kissing knows it’s coming, wouldn’t you say?”

“Asshole.” Wyatt clawed at Flynn’s shoulders as Flynn finally got his hand on Wyatt’s cock. Fuck, they didn’t have a lot of time, it was only intermission, but he was going to mess Wyatt up if it was the last thing he did. “You didn’t have to fucking do that—”

‘That’ had been using the fact that the audience couldn’t see Flynn’s upstage hand thanks to positioning and wearing coats, so he’d grabbed Wyatt’s cock through his pants during their kiss. Lucy was probably somewhere trying to find them so she could curse him out for it too, he’d seen her face go pink as she’d watched from Fantine’s death bed.

“Oh, but I did.” Flynn bit down on Wyatt’s neck as Wyatt stifled a moan, hips twisting up into Flynn’s hand.

It was far from the most elegant handjob he’d ever given, but they were short on time and Flynn was eager to watch Wyatt fall apart, kissing him to keep Wyatt’s moans to a minimum as Wyatt practically writhed against him. Wyatt had admitted, after Lucy had fallen asleep, that not being with a guy before made him a little… overwhelmed, when it came to the things Flynn did to him. Not that Lucy wasn’t capable of making Wyatt a wreck just by batting her eyelashes, but still, there was a newness to being with Flynn that Wyatt couldn’t quite control.

Flynn was happy to take full advantage of that.

Wyatt bit down hard on Flynn’s lip as he came, definitely staining their costumes but who the fuck cared, they could wipe it off and it didn’t stain or anything. Flynn was ready to pat himself on the back when Wyatt pushed him around and got down on his knees.

Oh, fuck.

“You really don’t have to—” Flynn started, but Wyatt was already licking his way up Flynn’s cock like he was going to die if he didn’t try this at least once and that was around the time Flynn lost all coherence.

“Is this where you two have been?” Lucy hissed, walking up. “I—oh.”

Her eyes were dark and glittering as she took in the sight, then marched up and kissed Flynn thoroughly. “Don’t stop on my account,” she informed Wyatt. “And breathe through your nose, sweetheart.”

“Lucy—” Flynn started but it appeared both his boyfriend and his girlfriend weren’t too keen on letting him finish sentences because she just kissed him again. He ran his hands over her curves, the thin cotton of her costume hiding very little, and Wyatt sure wasn’t an expert at this but his determination was making up for it, and fuck, oh fuck—

Flynn shuddered, feeling that all the way to his toes, Lucy kissing him through it as Wyatt pulled back, coughing a little and wiping at his mouth.

“C’mere,” Flynn said, grabbing her hips and spinning her around as Wyatt got to his feet. Wyatt took his turn to kiss Lucy as Flynn started to shove her skirts out of the way…

“Oh my fucking god,” Rufus groaned. “Guys they just called places, what the fuck.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy had been taking the Amy and Jess thing awfully well, Amy decided. Probably because Lucy was now also getting regularly laid.

Insanely regularly, if Rufus was to be believed.

“I think we all miscalculated,” Amy admitted to Jess.

Jess was half asleep and just tugged Amy closer. “Mmm?”

“With Lucy and the boys? Rufus says they’re having sex literally everywhere.”

“…inna mornin’,” Jess mumbled. “High notes. Tiring.”

Amy pet through Jess’s hair. “Okay babe.”

Jess kissed her cheek and fell back asleep. Amy texted Rufus one handed.

_Maybe carry a bottle of water to spray at them?_


	14. Chapter 14

The roar of the applause from the audience was something that Lucy would never, ever get used to and something she was never going to want to give up. Even if she was just a history professor who did community theatre on the side, she was going to find a way to keep being a part of this.

As much as she loved theatre, though, there was also a major relief when closing night came and she could actually have a life outside of the theatre space, and things like a normal sleep schedule and free time.

The curtain went down and she sagged against Flynn, groaning. “Thank God.”

“We did it!” Jiya screeched in victory, grabbing Rufus and planting a fierce kiss on his mouth before whooping and pumping her fist into the air.

Noah collapsed onto the ground, dazed, his eyes wide. “I learned a role in like three days. I learned a role. In three days.”

“There, there,” Jess said, patting him on the arm. “That’s it, let the shock kick in, it’s all a part of the healing process.”

“I’m never moving,” Dave croaked, sitting down on some steps. “I’m never singing again, and I’m never moving, if someone could come regularly to feed me that’d be great.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Babies.”

Lucy glared at her but then Amy was sweeping her up into a hug. “You were amazing!” she whispered. “Dad would be so proud!”

Lucy hugged her back, squeezing her eyes tightly shut to hold in the tears. She knew it was stupid, but she liked to pretend that Dad was watching from somewhere when she performed. “Thanks, Ames.”

“Your grandfather was definitely watching,” Wyatt said right before Flynn grabbed him and yanked him in, kissing him.

The kiss between Valjean and Javert had gotten progressively, ah, passionate with each performance until Mason had told the two of them that there were children in the audience, for the love of God, and if they needed to take care of things before the opening number to ‘dim the flames’ then by all means do so.

“Oh I bet he loved that kiss,” Amy laughed. Grandpa Ethan was about the only person in their family that Lucy and Amy could stand, and Lucy was pretty sure she was the only one besides Amy who knew that their grandfather was gay.

“All right, minions!” Mason yelled. “Say goodbye to your loved ones and get changed, it’s time to strike! Karl will give you all your assignments.”

“I think power has gone to Karl’s head a little,” Flynn whispered to Lucy as Karl walked over with a clipboard and a vindictive expression on his face.

“Strike is for sneaking away and having sex, right?” Amy asked.

“No, Mini Preston,” Wyatt corrected, “it’s for flirting. The cast party is for sex.”

“I call dibs on the green room in that case.”

“Amy c’mon you always use the green room.”

“Chop chop!” Mason yelled. “Split into pairs! Except my leads, you two aren’t allowed alone together.”

Flynn immediately grabbed Lucy and Wyatt flipped him off.

“Not you two either—you know what, how about you three just go with entirely different people, hmm?”

Lucy pouted but Mason stood firm. “It’ll make you all work faster.”

She had to admit he had a point. If she got either or both boys alone in some corner there was no way she was doing any work.

…what, she had three years to make up for.

Strike went relatively quickly, since everyone had their tasks and most of them were juniors and seniors who knew the drill by now. Lucy spied a few people who hadn’t yet gotten together flirting, like the guy who played Grantaire flirting with the guy who played Bahorel and several of the chorus members flirting with one another.

“Cake, cake, cake, cake,” Jiya started chanting as they finished clearing up.

“Hold your goddamn horses, woman,” Rufus replied, coming back from the green room with a massive cake decorated like the French flag. There was writing in French on it.

“What’s that say?” Wyatt asked Lucy, walking over and wrapping his arm around her waist.

“ _Mange les riches_.” Lucy paused. “Okay, who put in the cake order?”

Jess raised her hand.

“What does it say?” Wyatt repeated.

“Eat the rich,” Jess answered smugly.

Wyatt literally facepalmed.

“I approve,” Flynn said.

“Of course you approve.”

“Where’s the booze?”

“I didn’t hear that,” Mason called.

“Ah, having a theatre professor with questionable morality is fantastic,” Rufus said, deadpan.

Lucy pointed at Jess. “I’m trusting you with my underage sister’s alcohol intake. You do not want her drunk.”

“Why not?”

“Oooh,” Amy said, watching as Rufus lit the candles on the cake. “Fire is so pretty.”

Lucy pointed.

“One beer,” Jess promised.

“Anyone got anything to say before we blow out the candles?” Noah asked.

“Viva la revolution?” Dave suggested.

“Bring back the guillotine?” Flynn added.

Lucy punched him in the shoulder.

Emma sighed. “Could we please just get on with it?”

Lucy suppressed the urge to flip Emma off and grinned. The cast party had officially started.

Let the insanity begin.

 

* * *

 

Flynn leaned back against the wall as he watched Dave and Rufus do a purposefully overdramatic tango while Noah was switching up the music on them and Jiya had an earnest talk with Mason about the Neo Futurist theatre movement.

Wyatt came over, slotting himself against Flynn’s side as Flynn wrapped an arm around him. “Hey there porcupine.”

“You’re going to call me that all the time now, aren’t you?”

Flynn pretended to think about it for a moment. “Yup.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes but didn’t pull away or snipe at him, which Flynn took as blanket permission to call Wyatt ‘porcupine’ as much as he pleased. Then Wyatt looked around the room, frowning. “Have you seen Lucy?”

Flynn looked around and realized that he hadn’t in some time. “I think she went to the bathroom?”

“I don’t see Emma, either,” Wyatt said, his voice suddenly wary.

There was a yell from outside the theatre and then Lucy strode in, shaking out her hand. “Nobody tells you that punching someone fucking hurts,” she noted, walking over to the boys and presenting her hand, presumably for one of them to kiss it better.

Flynn took her hand and examined it. The knuckles were red but it didn’t look like they’d be swollen or anything later on. “I think you’re okay,” he told her, kissing her knuckles softly.

Emma entered, storming over to grab her things, a beautiful black eye starting to form.

“I’ve been waiting almost four years to do that,” Lucy noted.

“What did she do?”

“Mason told me I got the ACTF nomination and that ticked her off so she was being all superior so I punched her.”

“Ah.” ACTF was an acting competition held every year where college students, chosen from theatre productions, would compete to perform at the Kennedy Center. Emma hadn’t ever been nominated, something she predictably blamed Lucy for.

“About damn time,” Wyatt observed as Emma left in a huff. “You should’ve done that years ago.”

“I was going to, but somebody,” Lucy glared at Flynn, “stopped me.”

“Punching someone is different from grabbing a fork and trying to stab their eye out, Lucy.”

“She tried to cut you with a razor!”

“You were also tipsy.”

“So?”

“Actually are you tipsy now?” Wyatt asked.

“Maaaaabye,” Lucy drawled. She pecked Wyatt on the lips. “I’m about to get a lot more tipsy though.”

There was a yell from the assembled crowd and then someone yell-sang “There’s one more angel in heaven,” and a groan.

“I see the physical injuries have started,” Flynn noted.

“ _Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat_?” Wyatt asked. “Really?”

“ _Biblical Acid Trip_ ,” Flynn corrected.

“I’m going to get drunk on vodka,” Lucy told them. “Don’t drink too much, I need you guys able to get it up later so I can fuck you. Bye!”

She scampered off.

“You ever ask yourself, what did I get myself into with her?” Wyatt asked.

“Sometimes,” Flynn acknowledged. “But then I remember I’m kind of hopelessly in love with her so it all works out.”

Wyatt clinked their red solo cups together. “Cheers.”

 

* * *

 

“Jess, babe, light of my life, for the last time, I locked the door,” Amy said, stripping off her shirt.

Jess checked the green room door again anyway before walking over to her. “How are you feeling?”

“I just had one drink, I’m only a little buzzed.” Amy sat down, smiling up at her. “You don’t have to worry so much.”

“I love you, it’s my job to worry about you,” Jess replied.

Amy froze.

Jess looked at her oddly for a second, realized what she had said, and promptly clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. I’m sorry.”

“Did you just—tell me you loved me and then apologize for it?”

“I didn’t—I mean it’s only been a short time and—”

“And?”

Jess squinted at her. “You don’t think it’s, you know, too fast?”

Amy shrugged. “I mean if it is then we’re both going too fast ‘cause I’m in love with you too so…”

Jess leaned down, bracing her hands on either side of Amy so that she could kiss her softly. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Now I’m gonna very lovingly bend you over and very lovingly fuck the shit out of you ‘till you scream.”

“So romantic.”

Jess laughed, letting Amy pull her down onto the couch.

 

* * *

 

Noah shook Karl’s hand up in the booth. “Thanks for taking over for me, man.”

“No problem. I enjoyed it, I asked Mason if I could be SM next semester as well.”

“That’s great.”

“And congratulations, by the way,” Karl added.

Noah frowned. “On what?”

“You and Bam Bam?” Karl shrugged. “After you and Lucy broke up everyone felt bad for you, we were all rooting you two would get together when we saw you flirting at auditions.”

Noah couldn’t stop the infectious smile that spread across his face. “It is pretty great.”

“Yo!” Dave called from down below. “Kaaaarl, give him back!”

“He’s a clingy drunk,” Noah explained.

Karl, in one of his rare instances, gave a small smile. “It’s cute. You guys have fun.”

“You too, man. You’re unflappable or something. You can relax now.”

“What can I say—you agree to be Flynn’s scene partner freshman year when he’s a mess, it’s like baptism by fire. Nothing fazes me anymore.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt would normally be totally buzzed at one of these things, but he very much wanted to be able to follow through on the whole ‘let’s have tons of sex’ thing he had going on with Flynn and Lucy and he wanted to be able to remember it in the morning. Flynn was chatting with Rufus and watching Jiya kick everyone’s ass at beer pong, and Wyatt waved lazily when Flynn glanced over at him and winked.

“Heya.” Lucy walked over, looking considerably more tipsy that she had before, with a glass of something that was definitely not water in her hand.

“Hey yourself, baby doll.” He and Lucy had done a song from _Bonnie & Clyde_ for workshop freshman year and ‘baby doll’ had been his nickname for her ever since. It was also why Lucy called him ‘sweetheart’.

Lucy swung her leg over and sank down into his lap, rolling her hips. “Mmm you know what I want?”

“Some water because you’re drunk?” Wyatt asked, taking the glass out of her hand.

“No…” Lucy drawled, her nose brushing up his cheek. She was still squirming and rocking her hips and Wyatt realized he wasn’t going to be able to stand up. “I want… I want to watch Flynn fuck you.”

Oh, Jesus. “That’s, ah, fascinating.”

“An’ I want—I want you to eat me out. Flynn’s good at it but Jess told me you’re good at it too.”

He was going to either thank Jess or murder her and he wasn’t sure which. “Ah. Um.”

“C’mon, sweetheart…” Lucy planted delicate little kisses up his neck. “You know you wanna.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Wyatt spied Flynn over by the punch and flagged him down. Lucy had a real rhythm going now and Wyatt had to focus on remembering the lyrics to ‘Way Down Hadestown’ to keep from coming in his pants in front of the entire damn theatre department. “We gotta get her out of here,” he told Flynn when Flynn walked up.

“Can you fuck him while he eats me out?” Lucy asked brightly.

Wyatt gave Flynn a helpless look.

Flynn shrugged, then glanced around. “Dave, Noah, Rufus, Jiya, Amy, Jess… looks like the whole club is down here. The clubhouse should be empty.”

Wyatt swallowed hard. Well, fuck.

Lucy pecked Wyatt on the cheek, a rather chaste action considering what her hips were doing on his lap. “Then what are we waiting for?”

She hopped off of Wyatt’s lap. Flynn glanced down, visibly stifled an amused laugh, and offered out a hand to Wyatt to help him up.

Wyatt took it and then realized it was a trap as Flynn used the grip to yank Wyatt up against him, his other hand wrapping around to press at the small of Wyatt’s back. “It’ll be fun taking you apart,” he noted, his voice low and rumbling. “Gonna make a real mess out of you.”

Oh _fuck_.

 

* * *

 

Lucy dropped the ladder down for the two boys, then helped them retract it and close the trap door behind them. Flynn was on her in a second, sliding his tongue into her mouth and getting his hands up her thighs underneath her skirt. Lucy nipped at his lip, sucking on his tongue and yanking on his clothes to get him to follow her as she moved backwards onto a beanbag. Flynn’s thumbs massaged in slow circles up her thigh, until he had her skirt shoved all the way up, her legs spread.

She wrapped one arm around Flynn’s shoulders to keep him in place as she kissed him, her other hand reaching out blindly for Wyatt, pulling him in so that she could kiss him once she finished kissing Flynn.

“Why are you two still wearing clothes?” she complained, yanking at Wyatt’s shirt as she kissed him.

“I should’ve known you’d be the impatient type,” Flynn teased, stripping and then grabbing the lube. He kissed along Wyatt’s neck, his hands sliding around to undo Wyatt’s pants from behind.

Lucy hummed happily, loving the show she was getting—a private show just for her. She tangled her fingers in Wyatt’s hair and directed him down to kiss at her neck as Flynn finally got his hand around Wyatt’s cock, stroking slowly.

Wyatt managed to keep up the multitasking for a short bit, kissing Lucy all over, until Flynn winked at her and moved his hand farther back.

She knew the moment Flynn started working on prepping Wyatt because Wyatt yelped and accidentally bit her. Lucy’s hips jerked and she moaned a little, the sensation shooting right through her like fire. Wyatt licked contritely at the spot, then moved farther down to get between her legs.

Lucy hummed, pleased as punch, wiggling her hips in anticipation. Wyatt was teasing, kissing up her thighs, skirting around her clit, giving her only kitten licks. Flynn probably wasn’t helping with his relentless touching, his free hand and his mouth moving all over Wyatt, his other hand pumping steadily in and out from between Wyatt’s legs. Lucy really couldn’t complain about the view, although she almost wished she could see Wyatt’s face—judging by how he jerked and moaned when Flynn got the right angle, it had to be priceless.

Finally, Flynn pulled out. “You okay?” he asked, confirming.

Wyatt turned and glared at him over his shoulder. “Anytime this century would be great.”

“Spoiled,” Flynn shot back.

Wyatt spread Lucy’s legs a little further and oh— _ohhh_ yes. He wasn’t teasing now, going right for her clit and lapping hungrily before sliding through her folds and working his tongue into her. Lucy felt her spine liquify and she moaned, her head falling back. She struggled to keep her eyes open, to watch as Flynn lined himself up and entered Wyatt slowly. Wyatt’s hands tightened on her thighs and she felt him gasp and moan against her folds, the vibrations adding to everything.

“That’s it,” she cooed, petting through Wyatt’s hair. If she wasn’t already breathless with need she’d have him slow it down, just eat her out for hours. Or even make the boys take turns… she shuddered in pleasure at the thought.

Flynn started to move slowly, bending over so that he could kiss along Wyatt’s shoulder, his mouth falling open and his eyelids fluttering as he worked himself in deeper. Lucy didn’t really get to see Flynn overwhelmed during sex since she was overwhelmed herself, and she loved seeing him like this, seeing how very into it he was, seeing how he just couldn’t help himself, how lost in the sensation he was.

Wyatt had to stop now and again to breathe against her thigh, clearly overwhelmed. It was maddening, pulling her back right when she was at the brink of orgasm, leaving her shaking until she started to come down and then Wyatt would start all over again, licking and sucking at her until she was right near the edge once more.

“Come _on_ ,” she ordered, the sound coming out more like a moan than she would’ve preferred, and she felt Wyatt grin against her skin before sealing his mouth over her clit and sucking, the faintest hint of teeth felt against her trembling nerves.

Lucy screamed, her hand tightening so hard into his hair it had to be painful for him, shaking, feeling like everything was draining out of her through her toes. Flynn was watching her with dark eyes like she’d just shown him something holy, his hips stuttering in their rhythm, before he pulled Wyatt back so that Lucy could see his face, fucking into him even harder and faster than before.

Lucy reached down, getting her hand around Wyatt’s cock. She had to slide down the beanbag chair to do it, so that she was practically under him, but it was worth it for the way Wyatt practically seized up, shivering as he moaned and came. Flynn all but shoved himself inside and Lucy was pretty damn sure he came then too, judging by how his hands tightened on Wyatt’s hips and how he bit down on Wyatt’s shoulder.

Damn, that had been a show.

“Falling asleep up here naked is going to become a habit, isn’t it?” Flynn asked weakly.

Wyatt made a whining noise that suggested his brains had been fucked out and he wasn’t quite capable of speech yet.

Lucy pet his hair and crooked a finger at Flynn, who obligingly crawled up to her so that she could use him as a pillow. “I have so many ideas.”

“Of course you do,” Flynn mumbled.

Lucy turned her head so that she could kiss him on the chest. “I love you.” She reached farther down to caress Wyatt’s cheek. “Both of you.”

Wyatt reached up and squeezed her hand as Flynn kissed her temple. “It might take a lifetime to get through all your ideas,” Flynn whispered.

“That’s the plan,” Lucy replied.

It was the one thing she was sure about.

 

* * *

 

Rufus took a final look around the empty theatre. Looked like they’d gotten everything cleaned up.

“You all good to go, my love?” he asked, looking over at Jiya as she wrapped her scarf around her neck.

He felt like a huge sap in calling her something like that, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it in front of others in case he’d get teased, but Jiya’s reaction to it was so wonderful he found himself saying it all the time when they were alone. Her entire face lit up, the corners of her eyes crinkling, her smile blinding.

“I’m good.” She reached over and took his hand. Rufus shifted so that his arm was around her shoulders, tucking her into his side as he opened the door, bracing for the cold.

Jiya snuggled into his side as they started the walk back to her dorm. “I think the production went really well, all things considered,” she noted.

“I agree. You were amazing.”

Jiya blushed. “So were you.”

She looked up, into the night sky. “You ever wonder if anything’s ever looking back at us?”

Jiya got like this sometimes, wondering about time and life and the meaning of it all. Rufus looked up at the stars. “I don’t know.” Most of the time he didn’t.

“If something is looking, I hope it’s looking at theatre.”

“Why?”

Jiya shrugged. “I think that’s when the best of us comes out. All those people feeling the same emotion, sharing the same energy.”

“You’ve been reading _The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe_ again.”

“Maybe.” Jiya blushed a little.

Rufus kissed her on the top of the head. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Jiya paused. “You want to stay the night?”

They weren’t yet at the point where it was a given that one of them would stay over at the other’s dorm, or that they would always eat meals together, or things like that. Rufus had heard Jiya say ‘I love you’ in multiple ways, both spoken and unspoken, since they had gotten together, but it still made him feel warm and mushy inside when she said things like that—when she reminded him that she wanted him with her.

“Of course. We can finish off the alcohol.”

Jiya laughed. “And make a toast.” She cleared her throat. “To making it out alive from yet another show!”

“Three cheers!”

Rufus grabbed her and spun her around and she laughed, scattering kisses all over his face. He stopped, still hoisting her up, and she rested their foreheads together.

“Here’s to always making it back,” she whispered.

Rufus grinned. Amen to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ACTF is an actual thing that I competed in, and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner is a one-woman show, originally performed by Lily Tomlin, that is an absolutely amazing play everyone should read (and perfectly fits Jiya if you ask me).


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue! Thank you all for you enthusiasm for this zany story and for all of your lovely reviews and encouragement! Mwah!

The universal rule of the morning after cast parties was that one had to get one’s self out of bed, despite how much like death warmed over one felt, because one had always arranged to get brunch with a couple cast members in the vain assumption that one would not be completely hungover.

Lucy groaned as the alarm went off. “Garciaaaaaa,” she whined.

Flynn had the longest arms, so he reached over and turned off the alarm.

Wyatt made a noise of distress and buried his face into Flynn’s neck. Lucy pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.

“It was your idea to get breakfast with your sister,” Flynn reminded her.

“And the Lifeboat Club,” Wyatt added, sounding like someone had told him he was facing a firing squad that morning rather than getting pancakes.

Lucy allowed herself a moment to indulge in the feeling of sleeping on Flynn’s chest, the feeling of Wyatt’s warmth at her side, her hand in his hair, Flynn’s heartbeat under her ear.

Then she forced herself to get up and get dressed. “C’mon, boys. Burning daylight.”

Wyatt rolled over to flop on top of Flynn, pouting across the room at her. Lucy leveled her gaze at him. “Now.”

Wyatt and Flynn grumbled but got up.

 

* * *

 

Flynn still felt like death warmed over when he, Wyatt, and Lucy all got to the dining hall. Amy and Jess were waiting for them, Amy slumped against Jess, who was playing with her girlfriend’s hair.

“Rufus and Jiya are on their way,” Jess said. “Dave and Noah are already inside and said they saved us seats.”

“Of course they are,” Lucy groaned. “Like actual well-adjusted normal human beings.”

As they approached the line for breakfast, Flynn noticed that people were staring at them. Specifically, people were staring at him, Wyatt, and Lucy, and then quickly looking away and whispering when Flynn looked at them.

“Lucy,” Flynn said carefully, “did you tell anyone we got together?”

“I only told Amy because she’s my sister.”

“And I only told Jess because she’s my girlfriend and Wyatt’s ex,” Amy protested.

“And I told many, many people,” Jess said smugly.

Lucy grabbed Flynn’s and Wyatt’s hands. “Well, c’mon. If everyone already knows then I’m holding your hands in the breakfast line, dammit.”

They finally got through, and to Flynn’s surprise, nobody said anything. He would’ve expected a few opinions on polyamory voiced, since not everyone in the college was as progressive as the notoriously insane (and notoriously gay) theatre department. But people left them alone.

Not that he was going to complain about that.

Dave and Noah waved them down as they all approached, and Lucy firmly planted herself in Flynn’s lap, not even bothering with her own chair. Flynn wrapped an arm around Wyatt’s shoulders, playing with the hair at the nape of Wyatt’s neck, eating with his free hand and letting Lucy feed him a few bites here and there.

“We should’ve known you three would be disgustingly cute,” Rufus groaned as he and Jiya joined them.

Wyatt flipped Rufus off. “Says the guy who broke the sixth rule of Lifeboat Club.”

“Says the guy who also broke that rule! Twice!”

“If we’re counting orgasms, he broke it three times,” Lucy noted. “And Dave and Noah broke it too! We found their condoms!”

“That reminds me,” Flynn said, turning to Noah. “We owe you some condoms.”

“Amy and Jess broke it first!” Dave protested.

“Are you telling me that we all broke the no sex rule,” Jiya said, struggling to hide her laughter.

“Fuck’s sake, you all have dorm rooms you can fuck in, what the hell,” Jess grumbled.

“Well now we’ll actually have time to be in our dorm rooms,” Noah said. “The play is over.”

Everyone sighed and groaned in relief.

“Actually,” Rufus said, “I just heard from Mason.”

Everyone looked at him.

“Next musical is _Pirates of Penzance_.”

There was a long moment of silence as the image of Mason directing a Gilbert and Sullivan play sank in.

“…oh fuck me,” Flynn said.

Everyone silently raised their coffees in a toast.

To making it, somehow, through the disaster of next semester.


End file.
